Cryptoscience and Hard Times was the #13 release of 2009 for Now Like Photographs and their record of the week for December 9th.
Falcon Arrow return with a grittier release that matches the sound of their live performance. -Now Like Photographs
Falcon Arrow might be your best intro to epic instrumental music, if unfamiliar. What two guys can produce with just a guitar and a drum set has really changed over the past ten years, and the advent of loop pedals has opened a whole new chest of drawers, revealing some startlingly beautiful things.
A local duo, Falcon Arrow demonstrate precisely how well it can be done. Dav Kemp’s drumming is the beat to an odyssey through the landscape that his pal Matt Reints lays down with a bass. Think geology, watched in time-lapse movie speed: at times minimalistic, at other times triumphant and mammoth in its sound. Yeah, it’s stuff that intoxicates, transcends, and leaves you feeling reborn when it’s over. - Lunchofchampions.com
Clocking in at approximately twenty minutes, Falcon Arrow's second EP, Cryptoscience and Hard Times, has attracted lots of favorable reviews from fans of instrumental rock around the Internet. The EP combines heavily layered bass lines with some very intelligent drumming. Bassist Matt Reints is fully able to compensate for the absence of the guitars by focusing on playing most melodies in the higher octave of his bass. Most tracks on the album show the band's adherence to post-rock sensibilities in terms of arpeggiated lines and build ups, however, the immediacy with which the crescendos are delivered differentiates Falcon Arrow from the rest of the myriad of post-rock wannabes.
Falcon Arrow has a unique sound, only similar to just one other bass/drum duo, The Sound of Typewriters. However, Falcon Arrow’s sound is much fuller, better produced, and all in all more professional. The album flows brilliantly. The highlight “Vectroids” builds up from delayed bass chords to an awesome chromatic line in the midst of some “oh so familiar” voice samples and more of the amazing drumming. Sadly though, as with the rest of the tracks on show here, that high is short lived, and this is the main area that the band needs to work on in the future. Perhaps a composition exceeding the five minute mark will be able to showcase the duo's abilities further. Cryptoscience and Hard Times is a very tight EP, and, along with the first EP also receiving a favorable review here at TSB, the band's first full length will be something to look forward to. -The Silent Ballet
-Tramps and Hobos was in the top 50 songs of 2009 for the blog I Can't Come Home Grace, I'm an Adult-
Matt and Dav are real people. I have talked to them. They are awesome. Both the men and the music are equally ridiculously awesome. Allegedly, they enjoy some things I’ve been involved in too, such as Nowlikephotographs and Paragraphs. That blows my mind. Out of any band in the Twin Cities that I could hope to earn the respect of, it’d be Falcon Arrow. I cannot express with the appropriate rhetoric how honored I am to know these guys. Everything I admire about them is embodied in this song, too. For example, I once asked them in an interview, “Why just bass guitar and drums?” Dav quite matter-of-factly responded, “Cuz no one else is doing it.” It’s almost as if the two got together and just started writing songs, not even ever considering adding any other instruments to the mix. One’s a bassist, the other’s a drummer, what else do you need? One does melody, one does rhythm, and many times they both manage to do double-duty, depending on how intense Matt gets with his Line 6 looper and how octopus-esque Dav gets with his drumsticks. When you’ve got that, there’s nothing left to add really, and “Tramps And Hobos” goes through these motions like it’s old hat, nothing new, just doing their thing and letting it spiral through four minutes of two instruments colliding together with all the right patterns and sounds. The other attribute of this song that helps describe the band itself is that it’s relentless. I swear there’s no band with the amount of unquenchable thirst for playing shows that Falcon Arrow has. And just like the perpetual transient state of the song (also implied by its title), FA is always at another club or bar on another night playing to another crowd. And as a fellow instrumental musician, I can attest that many, many, many of these nights (especially the weeknights in St. Paul, nudge nudge) are to practically only staff, other bands, and drunks. But you know what? Of all the bands I’ve heard complain about that aspect of being a local band (present company included), I’ve never once heard Matt or Dav say anything but positive things about playing shows. They could seemingly care less if there’s 100 people watching them or 1, because as long as they’re playing for somebody, they’re letting out the energy rampantly while controlling it all the while. Completely in control but never detached or depressed by their world. They are minimalist musical nirvana nomads by choice, and they are way more fucking awesome than you’ll ever be.-http://icantcomehome.tumblr.com/
Cryptoscience & Hard Times is the second of two EP’s released in 2009 by local two-piece instrumental outfit Falcon Arrow. The instrumental rock community in the Twin Cities is less spoken of than others, but as digital music and experimentation has increased, so too has the number of these bands playing out in our local clubs. Within Falcon Arrow’s music the melody emphasis shifts from that of vocalization to bass lines and loops. Growing up, instrumental music might have seemed the providence of stuffy elevators and dental offices, but today bands like Falcon Arrow are making records fit for your video game overtures. Turn that television volume down, pop in your favorite Wii, Xbox, or Playstation game, and prepare to rock. Cryptoscience & Hard Times can push your first person shooter without the distraction of lyrics, and incidentally, the album isn’t a bad background soundtrack for your next house party either. Below is “Vectroid,” a song that Stanley Kubrick might have incorporated into a certain cult classic many years ago.- Borangutan.com
Cryptoscience and Hard Times takes off where Falcon Arrow's previous EP left off. Tight drumming, inventive guitar lines with heavy bass influence. This duo knows what they're doing and continually get better with each release. -Manual Dexterity Fall 2009
The music of Falcon Arrow is far removed from the style of post-rock that many of you are used to, yet it still possesses the same entrancing buildups and soothing come-downs that define the genre’s greatest moments. I pressed play not expecting more than a simple indie rock band, and when the replay screen finally came up I was still trying to comprehend how the looping bass was able to produce such a beautiful racket. -Mindinversion.com
Falcon Arrow need no six-string to rock, nor a vocalist to deliver the words. The message is in the music, and this instrumental duo is on a mission to spread their art near and far. -Borangutan.com
Man, what they did with those two elements totally defied my expectations. The bassist played a Precision with generous amount of distortion, and looped various parts and concocted a huge wall of sound. His techniques were flawless, as he moved seamlessly from busy strumming to single note lines. The drummer was rock solid and equally inventive. Add in liberal amount of punky attitude and you’d get music like no other. -Ari Koinuma
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