1. All The Possibilities // 2. You, You // 3. Why You So Bad? // 4. Get It Now // 5. Fire Escape // 6. Back To Strangers

FIRE ESCAPE

As No Tragedy plays on, I realize that after the first couple of tracks I more-or-less enjoy the rest of the music at about the same level. This creates a consistently great album, but not one stuffed with big highlights. Of course, this tends to be my takeaway from most TWS albums during the first week or so.

Fire Escape is another super-solid track. Like Get It Now, the song continues pulling on TWS’s sound just enough to make it feel novel without completely upending their appeal. In this case, the experimentation occurs through structure. On first listen, Fire Escape feels like a few disparate ideas thrown together, but its transitions are pretty seamless.

After a brief (beautiful) vocal intro, Fire Escape unveils a chanted refrain, which happens to be my favorite (and too little used!) element in the track. This chant was also included in one of the album’s teaser videos. Th hook has a wonderful texture with its vocals heavily filtered to draw instant attention. From here, Fire Escape moves into a fitful arrangement of muted verses and much more propulsive choruses. Again, this could easily feel like a messy hodgepodge, but the song’s sweeps and swerves somehow hold together.

Grade: B