Review: Midas Fall – Cold Waves Divide Us

Style: progressive rock, post-rock, alternative rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Maybeshewill, Suldusk, A.A. Williams, Messa
Country: UK
Release date: 8 March, 2024

Do you ever feel like there’s a monster inside you that you have to suppress? Like you’ve let down everyone around you and they would be better off having never met you? Like your life is going nowhere and you’re powerless to steer it in the direction you want? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be a fan of Sad Alternative Music. If you or a loved one listens to Sad Alternative Music, reach out to trusted members of your community who can get you back on the path to positive, uplifting music instead; it’s not too late to get help. Unfortunately, today’s review won’t help you at all with that particular malady.

Originally formed as a duo of omni-instrumentalists Elizabeth Heaton and Rowan Burn but featuring a variety of other contributors over the years, Midas Fall definitely play Sad Alternative Music. And to be clear, I’m poking fun at all of this, but I mean it with nothing less than a deep appreciation for touching, somber music and the emotions it inspires within its listeners. Cold Waves Divide Us, with its gorgeous, melancholy lyrics evoking personal struggles with self-image, intrusive thoughts, and understanding the passage of one’s life so far, feels capital-S Sad in the best possible way. Whether it’s from the poetic, personally meaningful lyrics of “Monsters” or the pained, emotive, cracking vocal performance found on “Atrophy,” I have no doubt this album will make you feel things.

Midas Fall flirt frequently with the spaced-out, distorted, and obfuscated aesthetic profile of post-rock without ever wholly settling into it. While percussion most often defines the standard post-rock ambiance, the eclectic mix of instrumentation from Midas Fall gives their music a much more active feeling as guitars, strings, and keyboards handle small rhythm parts and simple melodies in the background. This lets them blend the becalmed atmosphere of post-rock with occasional crushing heaviness reminiscent of doom metal, but without ever quite crossing the nebulous boundary from rock into metal. Each track offers a peek at a slightly different facet of this blended sound, like the slow, gentle buildup and harsh climax which features in “Salt,” or “In This Avalanche” which focuses fully on the lighter sounds of guitar and keyboard, but it’s the title track that brings everything together and shows definitively what the band can do. Heaton’s truly beautiful vocals shine in all their glory, supported by roughly equal bits of cinematic strings, alt-rock keyboards, and light guitars, all covered in atmospheric layers of reverb and impeccably mixed. Although “Cold Waves Divide Us” features it most prominently, this soundscape highlights the musical commonalities all across the album and ties together the sometimes contrasting pieces which make up each individual track. Of course, you can’t escape into the soft, airy ether forever; moments like the two-minute mark of the title track or the endings of “Salt” and “Mute” still occasionally haul you out of those depths just to growl in your face for a little bit with their hefty almost-metal guitars and hammering drums.

In moments where Heaton’s vocals drop out or fade from prominence, like most of the opener “In the Morning We’ll Be Someone Else” or the quiet middle section of the followup “I Am Wrong,” there’s precious little to take the place of the cathartically downer lyrics. While there’s always a touch of quiet but insistent motion in the backing instrumentals, only rarely do they settle into a nice unified groove or soundscape befitting Midal Fall’s post-rock origins; their lesser focus on percussion relative to other post-rockers, without setting up their other instrumentation to fade into the background quite so smoothly, robs the ambiance of a certain substance which would normally aid greatly in allowing the music to build momentum and reach a satisfying climax. Similarly, where the vocals and lyrical writing don’t land with as much gravitas, such as on “Little Wooden Boxes” before its instrumental closing with hefty distorted guitars, it can be hard to pick out the direction or any guiding influence that the composition follows, leaving it feeling a bit lost when I know the band can produce so much more compelling music. While there are still plenty of beautiful moments in their own right, providing more of a chamber music vibe with strings and quiet guitar, the division holds Cold Waves Divide Us back from ever quite finding its core sound or feeling like a cohesive presentation.

For all the challenges to categorization which they present, Midas Fall pretty much nail one aspect: that of “mournful female vocalist sings about sad things with strings and plinky guitars in the background.” Although all contributors add their own elements to this eclectic stew of beautiful moments, Elizabeth Heaton’s vocals steal the show, elevating lyric-heavy pieces like the title track and “Monsters” and offering a grand buffet of tragic messages to sink your depressed little teeth into. While not every song can be so lucky when it comes to having properly compelling lyrics, and the instrumental backing falters a little in the absence of their vocal leader (with the exception of the all-instrumental “Point of Diminishing Return”), there’s a lot to love, and a lot of feelings to experience in the full composition. So remember: talk to your kids about Sad Alternative Music. Before someone else does.

Recommended tracks: Salt, Point of Diminishing Return, Monsters, Cold Waves Divide Us
You may also like: Sermon, Iamthemorning, whyohwhy, Cavern, healthyliving
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Monotreme Records – Website | Facebook

Midas Fall is:
– Elizabeth Heaton (vocals, guitars, strings, synths, piano, drums)
– Rowan Burn (guitars, synths, piano, drums)
– Michael Hamilton (bass, synths, drums)