Donoma - Falling Forward (2017)

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Written by Aaron Ellis, posted by blog admin

Expertly produced by Mike Hoffman (The Verve Pipe, Willy Porter and Victor DeLorenzo of the Violent Femmes), Donoma’s musical strange brew is a tour de force of ragged rustic rock, country, blues, folk, punk and psychedelic thrills.  No band past or present is really comparable and giving points of reference feels like taking the easy way out.  It’s best to judge the band’s second album, Falling Forward, on its own merits without giving into the status quo. 

Opener “Sick” has an Ennio Morricone soundtrack hustle flowing beneath its big, brutish guitar riffs and economical, 50s rock rhythms.  Vocalist Stephanie Vogt intones her lyrics from the gut and violins, slide guitar and keyboards are all fair game in a thick, slobbering sound meant to belt you across the mouth.  The violins even step up further to the forefront of “Jack in the Box” which takes the opener’s pacing and vigor, doubles it and adds a lethal scorpion sting of poison to the warring riffs and grooves.  “Memory” clamps down on a 4/4 blues swing that showcases some of Vogt’s strongest, most pop-oriented vocal melodies on the album (though her tone is much more of a bluesy storyteller).  You could play this for a fan of Savoy Brown and the Groundhogs and they’d go, “Hey man, this ain’t bad!”  Those lamenting riffs, low to the ground rhythms and caterwaul wails retain their unique signature on a rendition of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” a curious but expertly executed inclusion to the quintet’s own arsenal. 

Donoma wanders off into some outside the box turf on the gothic colloquialisms of “He Loves Me Not,” where you can picture Stephanie Vogt hollering her lines sitting atop a grand piano (and piano is one of many complementary instruments here).  The album’s midsection also throws in change-ups like the keyboard/programming goosed “Deep Beneath the Woods” which is befitting of a sound that closes a nightclub PA at 2 in the morning while the campfire tale, electric folk-rock of “Another Light” takes the band’s heavier minded ideals and turns them into a gorgeous ballad.  “Splinter” flirts with the kind of quirky, jazz-esque punk-metal of White Mice or one of Julie Christmas’ crazed projects as the rest of the album slips into blues/country mantras that are most powerfully delivered via “Unfortunate One’s” harrowing vocals and pokerfaced, 5-card riffage. 

Falling Forward is a cornucopia of light and shade; volume and swell that ride every good idea to the end of the trail.  There are no weak songs or duff filler tracks.  Even music fans that don’t dig on some of the genres exemplified may very well come out of this experience as a lifelong fan of Donoma’s work.