Album Review: Let It Happen - 'Cause + Effect'

3 October 2014 | 10:54 am | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

A one sentence description would be an injustice.

What pulls us into music? What creates a connection to these three minute sections of sounds and silences that we crave? Is it lyrics? Is it the emotion and power? If we can throw our two cents in the ring, then we'd say melody. It's always been melody.

We can all recall a time in our lives where we chucked on an album we hadn't heard before, probably by a band we'd never heard of either. We settle in for the night and let the record spin while we fiddle about. It doesn't matter what we're doing; dishes, homework, relaxing, or staring into space, there are moments in music that just hit us. They stop us dead in our tracks. Our backs tense, our spines tingle and the world dissipates around us, leaving only the music and us; alone. That's thanks to melody. If you're one of those people that fit the above, you need to look at this album; right now.

From the time you click play to the time you put your headphones away, Let It Happen's 'Cause + Effect' is thirty five minutes of pure beauty. Beautiful melodies, gripping riffs, astounding. vocals, bass and percussion. It's pure alternative rock beauty.

It's like a jigsaw that has an abundance of pieces that when we look at the finished project, we see not only the picture as whole, we see the work, time and commitment has gone into it. On tracks like 'Ebb and Flow' and 'Spent', there is an undeniable sense of depth. The soundscape is woven together like the finest of wicker and every second of it hits you harder than the last.

'High and Dry' and 'Burst and Bloom' boast these huge, sonic-swimming choruses that fill you from head to toe with that warm, tingling feeling. They're catchy and moving and just absolutely astounding in all of it's alt. rock glory. You can't help but kept caught up in the structures of each and emotion that just emits from ever pores in this eleven track beauty.

Lyrically, there's a sense of negativity yet at the same time there's hopeful ambition. On 'The Lonely One', lead singer Drew Brown sings "Am I mess you can't clean up?Am I just fucked?I'm a natural disaster, I won't be reckoned with.All the math hereafter will end up equal to the sum of all the things that I have done.I'll be the lonely one." The lyrics although negative and almost to the point of self-loathing are sung in an almost apologetic manner. It creates not only relatability but also creates another layer of aesthetic on an otherwise "sense overload" sounds-bed.

'Cause + Effect' is the accumulation of all we look for in music. It's beautifully captivating and ambitious. It's honest, passionate and moving. If you can listen to this record and not feel any warmth or feeling from it then we honestly feel sorry for you. Let it Happen have created the music equivalent of falling in love for the first time; the equivalent of looking at someone and tragically getting lost within their eyes with no intention of coming back.

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1. Cause

2. Burst and Bloom

3. Losing Something

4. The Lonely One

5. High and Dry

6. Heavy Pages Are Harder To Tur

7. Sinner/Saint

8. Astray

9. Spent

10. Ebb and Flow

11. Effect