54. An EP Preview of Volume 1 by Fireworks Over London

Originally published October 14th, 2024

About the Artist

Today, there are a plethora of options for independent artists on social media. From Instagram to Threads, or X. Facebook and LinkedIn. TikTok and YouTube. Using these platforms, we can connect, promote, coordinate, network, and do many more things. With the devices we hold in our hands every day, we can manage a website, book a show, produce a song, and produce a music video. In 2005, we just had MySpace.

MySpace was the unrealized and untapped potential of Facebook. But it was the pioneer of real social media as we know it today. If a band wanted a free website to manage and promote themselves, MySpace was the way to do it. There was a place to list band members, a bio, and show dates. They could also feature 4 songs on the profile that displayed a counter to let people know how many plays the songs had, post messages to friends and fans, and post pictures. Towards the end, bands could even embed videos of shows or music videos in the bio section. But the best part was the networking. If a band had a show booked, and they needed to fill the lineup, they had the ability to link up with other local bands and book these gigs. It was this platform that I first discovered Fireworks Over London.

Fireworks Over London have gone through a number of lineup changes over their near twenty year existence. Eventually, they began simply billing as two of the remaining original band members: Daniel and Travis. When I discovered them on MySpace, they were based out of Memphis, Tennessee, but now they are both living in Kentucky, around the Louisville area. Funny enough, while doing a deep dive on the internet to write this review, I found this post from 2013, of FOL playfully inviting me to be the band’s manager (PSA: murder is bad, even if it is in an effort to promote your favorite local band). 

When I first found them, I was drawn to a song that they had posted on their MySpace profile called Requiem Waltz. It wasn’t the version that would later be released on their debut album, A Message. It was very minimalist; I remember it was a programmed beat, layered pianos, and maybe a guitar part? But I was drawn to the purity of Daniel’s vocal performance. It reminiscent of Matthew Bellamy’s of Muse, when Muse was still Muse (YAY!) and not Muse (meh). Suffice it to say, I have been hooked ever since.

Funny thing, life is. It wouldn’t be for a few years that I would actually connect with Travis. In 2010, I messaged the band, desperate to know if they were working on anything. To my surprise, Travis informed me of the album they were independently releasing. I explained to him I was on orders with the Army but, when I returned, planned on obtaining the album. Travis was so grateful and supportive of my military service, that I was gifted an advanced digital copy of the album. It was an amazing gesture that had never been needed more. That album got me through the perils of a training program that ended with an Airborne training mishap that left me in a cast.

Over the next few years, Travis and I would maintain a friendship over social media, with sporadic updates as to what the band was doing. The last FOL update being in 2013. In 2015, I mustered up the courage to ask Travis to play guitar on my second EP, Internal Conflicts. To my delighted surprise, he agreed and drove down to Nashville’s Middle C Productions where he contributed masterful guitar parts for 3 of the 6 songs on the album. We would continue to talk about other things, not just FOL. I have the honor of saying that our friendship developed into something beyond the music and I no longer feel like a starstruck wannabe nipping at the heels of that band I admired so much for so long. 

Then Travis told me FOL were working on new music. I found myself starstruck again, leaning at the edge of my chair for any new news. From “new EP,” to “it’s actually going to be two EP’s,” to  “recording’s done, we are waiting on artwork,” and then finally, “we are releasing on October 18th.”  I practically begged to write this review up and have been doing so since the beginning of September. Last week, Travis agreed. 

I was at dinner with my wife and my phone buzzed alerting me to an incoming email. The subject: “FOL - Volume I.” I was so excited to download those 6 files. As I left the restaurant, I was filled with an anticipation that had been building ever since 2013. I got into my car, started the engine, and felt the elated feeling of joy in my chest as I hit play.

About the EP

Volume I is a 6-song EP by Fireworks Over London that will be releasing on October 18th, 2024. It has a runtime just at around twenty-one minutes and forty-five seconds. It is a full band album, featuring vocals, guitar, bass, drums, and synthetic elements, with sampled excerpts from a sermon. The genres most relative would be progressive rock, rock, and alternative rock. The performance is comparable to Muse, Kings of Leon, and maybe The Killers.

About the Music

The first song is called Intro and it is just that. It has an approximate run time of one minute and it is essentially a sound clip of a radio switching from channel to channel, occasionally landing on what sounds like older FOL releases. As the Intro concludes, a synthetic tone slowly builds over the radio sample, leading into the first (second) song on the album.

Fable is a song that has been previously released but renamed by FOL, which is completely appropriate, because this reimagined version brings the best parts from the original composition and blends them with more experience, more talent, and a wiser understanding of even their own work. The song comes in with haunting guitars playing arpeggiated around Daniel’s pristine vocal performance. Pristine might not even be appropriate to say. Could he have gotten better after all these years? As Fable continues, guitars layer and swell, surrounding every empty space with gut wrenching, melodic chimes, as if they were a bell choir. Backing vocals support the lead in perfect harmony, providing an abundance of sound, all of which is complimentary of the tone.

Just as the last song, we transition right into the third track, which is Fighting Words. Fighting Words leads of with a very pretty guitar part supporting Daniel’s voice, which is met with a heavy, crunchy guitar part, drums, and bass, separating each line of the verse and giving an interesting transition to the melody. As the chorus comes in, FOL keeps the energy from the uptempo, adding a choral lead guitar that soars above all else. Daniel’s vocals again take leaps and bounds that make it almost sound more instrumental than actually coming from a human body. The middle of the song has a two melodies performing in harmony with one another with the lead guitar copying one of the lead melodies. The change of melodic tone on the upbeat of each rhythmic passage here is such an interest take and really makes this song stand out.

This is more evidently becoming a theme as we have another lead into our next song, Queen Victoria. In this song, drums bring us in shortly followed by vocals and guitar. The verse is so melodic. It gives a sense that I am floating adrift with no control but to just go where the current takes me. The break of the verse almost gives an Edward Scissorhands with layered vocals harmonizing over one another. The vibe of the song is very haunted, very enchanting. Almost unsettlingly beautiful. The bridge has a completely unique chord progression that has so much classical composition, it almost feels symphonic. As the song fades out, a recording of a preacher comes in, speaking over the resolving tones, ending with the line “there’s nothing more dangerous I can think of than a counterfeit preacher.”

This leads into the fifth song, Monsters, which is another repurposed song. And just like Fable, the new version surpasses the original in instrumental and vocal performance alike. In this version, Daniel incorporates harmonizations that completely change the feel of the song, for the better. He continues to NOT MISS with his vocal performance. This song also features an impressively dynamic variety of guitar parts, with some very cleaner arpeggiated choral sounding parts, and a very dirty deep riff that just brings energy to the song. As the song fades, reverb starts to take over, as if the song begins to disperse on a molecular level, dissolving into the universe. 

FOL closes out with another completely new song,  Chariot. It begins with a sort of groove beat, shortly followed by the choral accompaniment of guitars and the leading vocal part. The verse sounds as if it defies gravity because it just soars. The song breaks with another sample of the preacher and as this concludes, the closing element of Chariot occurs. From a collective work that is so impressive, it is hard to pick a favorite part but I think this is it. The chord progression goes in a direction that I would have never anticipated. Once again, Daniel can do NO wrong. The guitars almost feel protective as the melodies just wrap around the body of the music. 

The musicality of this band is simply unbelievable. I really try to incorporate constructively critical remarks to help artists build and grow as musicians. The only thing that comes to mind is the desire to say, “Fuck that.” After 11 years without hearing a new FOL song, they come back to the indie scene with a product that will take me another 11 years to even try to comprehend its brilliance. I wouldn’t change a thing.

The BEST part is that this is Volume One, which logically means there will at least have to be a Volume Two.

About the Lyrics

I am going to be more brief than I typically am with the lyrical analysis here for a couple of reasons: 1. This is turning into a full on magazine article. I didn’t expect to write so much. And 2. FOL’s music is the main event. Honestly, Daniel might be the greatest lyricist in the world and I would never know it because my focus never leaves the music. But, I really tried to focus on the lyrical content in some of the songs. 

There is a religious undertone to the music that seems to focus in on using faith as a device to mislead and govern hate. Fable delves into the narrator’s recognition of his own mortality, as he contemplates anxiety through undecided opinions and beliefs. As if his beliefs today contradict what he believed when he was younger.

In Chariot, the narrator sounds obsessed with setting records straight. He is overwhelmed with the corruption he sees around him and he is determined to go to his grave to reset and restore a faithfully prosperous world. 

After listening to the lyrical content, I can say with all of the envy I can muster, that Daniel is just as exceptional a lyricist as he is a vocalist.

Final Thoughts

Growing up around the Nashville Scene when I did, I got so spoiled. I had the opportunity to see so many bands before they crossed over into mainstream success. I was at the very first Cage the Elephant show. I had a friend practically drag me to this showcase I had no desire to go to, which ended up being for Kings of Leon. Hell, my mother taught Taylor Swift in 8th Grade and selected her to perform an original song for their school’s talent show. These are just drops in the bucket for people who love music in this city. It’s everywhere, all the time. I can remember going to my friend’s concert when he played in a band called Covington, who were supposed to be the next big thing. Standing beside me was this young girl who was a SUPERFAN of this group. She talked about how she was in her own band and they hoped to amount the success of Covington. I remember that conversation particularly because she shared a sentiment that so many aspiring musicians in Nashville did; to look up to that indie band that shows you the pathway that bridges indie artist to mainstream success. That and her name was Hayley Williams and her band was named Paramore. 

Why am I saying all of this? I am saying it because, around all of that influence, Fireworks Over London was the best of them all. They have a connection with their music like nothing I’ve ever heard before. And they have this ability to infect their listeners with that connection so that it resonates long after the last note is played. Fireworks Over London changed me. 

Take a moment to follow them on Spotify, Instagram, and Threads. And MAKE SURE you press play Friday morning when Volume I starts streaming on all platforms everywhere!