The dB’s ‘Falling Off The Sky’ « Cool Album of the Day

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The dB’s ‘Falling Off The Sky’

Posted 05 Mar 2018 in Albums of 2012, Albums of the 10s, John Driscoll

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#961 in the Series) is The DB’s, Falling Off the Sky

The most difficult thing about listening to this brilliant “must-hear” album is to realize it has been 30 years since their last record together with this, their original line-up. Since then they’ve had a bunch of incredibly listenable songs in their heads and hearts. We are the beneficiaries of their immense talent to produce what really sounds like songs you have heard before even after just one listen.

Pop hooks abound, you wonder why radio isn’t listening, but eventually you don’t care, you are just lucky enough to know about it, and now you do, go get it! Inevitably you have to have some comparison, and in their heyday of the early 80’s perhaps a really talented REM, Guadalcanal Diary, who else who cares. I don’t want waste time thinking about who else they sound like. Its apples and oranges never got the Stones v. Beatles comparison, I lean heavily toward the latter, and so do these guys. With this release they take over the trend of barnyard hillbilly releases of bands with less musical talent, much less songwriting talent. This record is freaking profound.

They come out of the box with the first two tracks rocking like the best bar band you could ever hear. Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple do all the songwriting and alternate in a very Lennon/McCartney-like trade off. Drummer Will Rigby does get credit for writing one song, but in the end you don’t care, you just feel blessed to be cool enough to have this in your collection of great music. The first two tracks melodically rock your hat off, the third, “The Wonder of Love” is the best pop song you never heard, and they don’t come out with a ballad until track five with a gorgeous “Far away and Long Ago,” and only add one more semi-ballad throughout.

My first listen to these guys was 1984’s Like This a record without a weak song and with plenty of poptastic treats. They chose the name of the band for two reasons, “drums and Bass” and the acronym for “decibels”- the scientific measure of loudness. You will enjoy turning the volume up for “Falling off the Sky.” It does harken back to that great sound they put out so long ago, and my personal fave is “The Adventures of Albatross and Dogrell.” It has great playing, great drumming, uses the cymbals as the lead and even sneaks in some horn with the piano lead. The writing makes it platinum. But really all the songs are my favourites, and if after listening you don’t hear that outstanding sound of magnificent talent, you need to have your musical IQ checked out. What really bums me out is they did tour small clubs and included Chicago in their tour last fall and I missed it.

I beseech you to include this in your collection and challenge you to say, it’s just ok. It is outstanding, and a really cool album. I hope they don’t go another 30 years before their next release. You won’t either!

– John Driscoll, Chicago, Illinois, USA