I remember my friend Nathan thrusting an earphone in my ear high school so that I could listen to The Fall of Troy‘s ‘F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X’ and not the algebra that Mrs Dixon was teaching. I had never really heard anything like that particular guitar melody before; it was so noodly and reverberated. The music was fast, the tempos shifted, rhythms were weirdly punctuated; I couldn’t guess how the songs would pan out. It was like TFOT were matadors and I was the bull constantly getting tricked. I remember when TFOT were on Equal Vision Records, which put out some of my favourite hardcore bands like Shai Hulud and Drowningman. I sent Equal Vision a money order to buy the Doppelgänger CD but I never received it, which was kind of shit. I guess the moral of all this is that just when you feel you can predict life, life happens.
And that phenomenon still echoes. Did anyone guess that these rising stars from the post-hardcore boom of the early-mid 2000’s would be warmly invited back by the math rock community in more recent times? Did anyone see their reunion and subsequent performance at ArcTanGent coming? I sure as hell didn’t. TFOT were a band I liked when I was wearing Poison The Well t-shirts, pulling up my socks, spiking my hair and going to hardcore shows. A decade on I wanted different things from music and started to listen to math rock and post rock. Suddenly, a voice from the past re-emerges and plays the math rock oriented festival I spend each year getting involved with: ArcTanGent. Just when you feel you can predict life, life happens.
Today, we are sharing The Fall of Troy’s performance of ‘Sledgehammer’ at ArcTanGent 2015, a track that still packs weight nine years on from its original release. The footage appears courtesy of our great pals in Small Pond Recordings (who else?). It’s the perfect precursor as we all get ready for ArcTanGent 2016, which you are apparently getting tickets for.