Donoma - Falling Forward (2017)

OFFICIAL: https://www.donomatribe.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/donomatribe

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/donomatribe

Written by Alonzo Evans, posted by blog admin

Donoma is a crazed, experimental band from the American Midwest with a free-form poet as a singer.  One minute they can sooth the senses with blues and old classic heavy rock sounds, the next they are a whirling dervish of strange time-signatures and quirky punk rock, then just when you least expect it you get settled down by a complete soft number to be left adrift on a tranquil sea.  This Wisconsin quintet never treads the same ground for long.  Sometimes the overload of experimentation can make for some head-scratching but at the end of the day it’s cool to hear a band just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. 

There are no limits to just what boundaries Donoma will push.  Opening cut “Sick” could go over with either a rockabilly, country of classic rock crowd; guitars cranked to 11, vocalist Stephanie Vogt burying herself in a throat burning blues snarl, the drums and bass almost metallically aggressive and auxiliary instrumentation providing a dramatic bent.  “Jack in the Box” and “Splinter” have howling, distortion rattled vocals, twitchy off-kilter rhythm and deranged guitar figures in the key of The Jesus Lizard and Surgery which barely seem to fit on the album as a whole but somehow do, then you get a slice of cabaret in “He Loves Me Not’s” lounge jazz grooves and spicy piano or the way “Deep Beneath the Woods” melds those elements with synths and electronic ambience.  Donoma’s smashes through old blues riffs and brain-blasted 70s rock grandeur on outstanding showcases like “Memory,” “Unfortunate One” and “Otherside” where simplicity is embellished over intricacy.  Then there are the smoldering, lighter-in-the-air atmospherics of “Another Light” and “A New Shed of Colors.”  Literally, across Falling Forward’s twelve layered tracks you will find a song to please every type of rock fan as well as music fans outside of the genre who crave something unfiltered and untainted by digital coldness. 

Whether adhering to tradition or breaking it at the kneecaps, Donoma is a one of a kind band that truly don’t sound like anybody but themselves.  There are tracks I prefer to others but this is a record I can listen to from start to finish with modest hope of trying to point an exact bead on what they are doing.  Anybody who thinks that rock n’ roll has lost its will to try anything will be pleasantly surprised with what they find on Falling Down.