PHANTOM ON THE HORIZON

I think The Fall of Troy really seems like a band that's trying to explore new boundaries with each release. And Phantom on the Horizon is no exception. This EP is a remastered version of the band's Ghostship EP, although the tracks have changed significantly (I haven't heard the Ghostship EP yet so this is just based on the information I have). Apparently the band had been working on these songs for nearly 5 years, and it really shows. There's a mix of the usual musical elements, although the one that stands out the most is the long acoustic and noise sections. With significantly longer track lengths than we are used to seeing from The Fall of Troy, some of the noise/acoustic passages really get a lot of time to build. For anyone who thinks that the band isn't influenced by The Mars Volta, I challenge them to listen to the opening song of this 37 minute suite. There almost seems to be a post-rock aspect to the music here too. Of course we still have the hard-hitting passages, but they feel even more mature in comparison to those found on Doppelganger. I think it's safe to say that The Fall of Troy has completely matured by this point and we can expect many great things to come from the band.

Physical copies of this EP in CD format are practically nonexistent at this point. I did read on the band's website around the end of April that they were releasing 1,000 copies of the EP on vinyl through their website and another 1,000 through Hot Topic. But for those of us who don't have vinyl players or who can't get the album on vinyl, we pretty much have to resort to downloading through Itunes, Amazon, etc. However, this EP is most certainly worth it. Some of the noise/acoustic passages tend to not keep my attention occasionally, although when The Mars Volta does it for awhile it has the same effect on me sometimes. However, I don't think The Fall of Troy really drags any of them out unnecessarily. I'll give this 4 stars. This would also serve as a great introduction to the band for many people.