One little thing is usually harmless. Hundreds of that can be destructive.

Louie Rosales reviews Freeradio's D.E.A.F.

The following is a review of our EP written by a friend & fellow independent musician.

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At present—an age dominated by K-Pop, autotune pop, and skank pop—it’s not impossible that somewhere someone might sometimes wish he’d rather be deaf. If you are this frustrated someone, listen to DEAF.

Freeradio’s new independent EP kicks off promisingly with the grungy track Deny Me. With an opening riff that declares it is a raw subterranean band you’re listening to (not one of the squeaky clean rock bunch floating in the polluted mainstream) it allows you, right from the get go, to get warmed up for the next song—Emergency, during which you’ll most probably be doing the almost lost art of head-banging.

Emergency, however, seems to be the single misleading song in the record. The opening riff, like the previous song’s, is a clever hook, but as the singer deviates from his usual singing style (he sounds, for the first time ever, like he’s intoxicated; yet effectively conveys the mood of the song) you may need some time to get used to the vocals, or it might fool you into thinking that Freeradio is an unsophisticated garage band. While this song isn’t the most beautiful one in the EP, it has at least the most energetic chorus. Not necessarily great, but just plain hyper fun. Imagine yourself in a small jam-packed music club in the early 90’s, listening to a band rocking out with a drunk front man; Emergency is the song the band is playing. You start to lose yourself and a riot starts. The lead singer’s sings out: settle down, settle down...

And settle down indeed: easily outshining Emergency is the next track, Arms Around—the sort of rock song that starts seemingly tame and ignites with a chorus that oozes through the soul at first emergence.

Forever in the dark and always praying...
The load upon your back won't keep you kneeling...

Had this been released during the early 90’s, this song would have been huge, instantly. Incredibly, this probably isn’t going to be the record’s biggest hit—due to the EP’s epic finale:

Falls Free.

Opening with a melodic female moan, the song churns flaming (but not excessively flashy) guitar work with weighty, unpretentious words into one lingering rock masterwork. Now forget about 90’s semblance; as far as Falls Free is concerned, this EP is timeless.

One might fancy that the gods of rock must have head-banged excessively back in the rock heydays and created a massive dent in the time-space continuum causing four mighty fine songs to swerve and leap from the glorious past directly to the dreary future. But no, this gem comes from present day Calbayog, Philippines.

Track after track, DEAF’s quality goes nowhere but up, Falls Free being the cathartic peak; a tight record with an intentional lo-fi approach, a sublimated dirty finger in the face of generic/autotune-loving freaks.

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You can download 'D.E.A.F.' here: http://bit.ly/gbKE8q
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