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ForEach Loop
The Perils of Texas
I was waiting impatiently for this album for a while now, and let’s start by saying my expectations were met, in glorious fashion.
ForEach()Loop is a Denton, TX indie rock outfit that makes a killer blend containing shades of 90’s alt rock, grunge, punk, and garage rock.
They’re out with The Perils of Texas, a gritty and catchy and blistering debut full-length album that feels a little too appropriate for landing on July 4, in a year when all of America seems to be collapsing into the same political and cultural sinkhole that is embodied in the subject of this album.
Among other elements, this record satisfies in the same way as an earlier release by (fellow Texans) Frogmouth - it sounds like the work of a real band. The chemistry is undeniable.
“State of Texas” was the first single we heard, a fuzzy but deliberate rocker with a killer arrangement that shows off all the band’s strenghts - the compelling vocal melodies, efficient harmony, the tendency to let songs breathe, the weaving together of old influences and new ideas.
By the time they get to the coda “I hoped that you would listen to all the people crying” you can almost feel what’s coming - that extra voice waiting to jump in the mix, the lead guitar barely holding back waiting for its moment - this song is a great entry point to the band.
“Uvalde, TX (Lone Wolf)” starts out with a total 90s vibe. But for just a moment, before I caught myself thinking about bands like Meat Puppets and Marcy Playground, there was just a glint of some thing that wouldn’t have fallen too far out of bounds for The Allman Brothers.
At this point we get to the first moment on this album that left me shaking my head in admiration. The vocal on “Things Are Good (Because of You)” is so simple and unassuming, and so very beautiful. This could’ve been a radio smash when I was a kid - albeit with a label-required edit to cut out 4 minutes. Remember that tendency to let songs breathe I mentioned? Here the guys stretch out what could have been a tidy little indie rock ballad into a 7.5 minute meditation. It’s deliberate, delicate, and effective and leads up to a joyous crescendo before dissolving away on the final pensive notes of the chorus. This track is absolutely gorgeous.
From here we move on to “I Want to Know (What We’re Fighting For)” and its jumpy, frenetic, insistent grunge vibe that starts out feeling like something you might hear from Alice In Chains, before thrashing through an angry middle section before launching into an extended, gnarly home stretch full of wailing guitars and vocalist Chris Lam declaring “I cannot waste another day” in another anthemic ending, something of a signature in this band.
More grungy goodness on “Waco, TX (Bright Lines)” before we get to “White Settlement (Then Came the Suburbs)” which is another “hit that got away” from another era. Like if The Presidents of the United States of America had decided to try and get their career Dixie Chick-ed. “Extermination built this nation, then came the suburbs” sings Lam, a wry line that hits like a ton of bricks. “It still has its namesake, though we tried to change it, it’s safe for you and me”. This is a killer rock song and another great calling card track for the band.
I had such a big smile on my face from the first seconds of “Texas Troubles (Are Blowing Me Away)”. It explodes out of the gate, quite flagrantly country but full of mischief. Like a punk band that fell through a wormhole and was forced to play in a Western saloon 100 years ago.
A joyful, sarcastic, kick-ass romp you’d be hard pressed not to tap your foot to, even for one of those goatee-and-Oakleys internet comment douchebags that would probably hate the lyrics.
“Winter Before (The Land of the Free)” is a lovely - though characteristically cutting - ballad that builds itself to a powerful resolution before we arrive at the nine minute closing track, “New London School Explosion” about a little-known disaster in 1937 in which a natural gas well blew up a school and killed 300 people inside a school.
The song swerves gently between delicate verses and fuzzy choruses, builds and swells and falls, and serves as a nice cap on the record. For me, it was a reminder of how never-ending the struggle against all our demons is - against negligence, capitalism, government, industry, hatred, fear - every now and then we’ve had the luxury to relax, but when we do, our demons grow stronger and eventually require a much bigger fight to put them back in the box.
This record is a hell of a statement, an absolutely killer document of a band that’s got something to say and a flair for how to say it.
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