Florence Road - Fall Back EP Review
Florence Road carve out a space of their own with a debut EP full of angst, tenderness, and grunge-pop charm.
It seems that 2025 is the comeback year for indie bands - and placing themselves firmly within that category is the four-piece girl band Florence Road, who have just released their highly anticipated debut EP, Fall Back, via Warner Records last Friday.
The band features Lily Aron on lead vocals, Emma Brandon on guitar, Ailbhe Barry on bass, and Hannah Kelly on drums, all childhood friends from Wicklow in Ireland. Initially gaining popularity through their TikTok covers, the band are slowly making a name for themselves; having just finished opening for Sombr around Europe, as well as securing an opening slot for Olivia Rodrigo at BTS Hyde Park and Dublin this year.
The group's sound teeters between multiple subgenres - indie, soft-rock, grunge, and alt-pop - and combines these styles to create something new and refreshing. Lily's vocal delivery throughout the EP is particularly strong; it's emotional, raw and completely untamed, which only adds to the candidness of the lyrics.
The EP opens with Hands Down, a soft-rock ballad with a heavy electric guitar chorus. Lily's vocals ring throughout, her voice breaking and full of feeling, yet never too much or uncontrolled. The instrumentation and production follow suit: it's messy in nature, which I think it should be, given how early the girls are into their careers and the nature of the topics that they're writing about: navigating youth in all of its chaos.
Goodnight is next, possibly the most Olivia-Rodrigo-coded song, with a strong beat and bass line, and an angsty and catchy chorus and bridge. Lily chants lyrics 'this time, I'm gonna get it right, I'll leave the past behind, and your bags outside' / 'I'm sorry that it didn’t end well, but you never were a good pretender. I'm sorry that it didn’t end well, but you didn’t help yourself'. Whilst being a great sing-along tune, this might be the most predictable track on the EP in terms of melody and production, and not as sophisticated as the other tracks.
The EP swiftly moves on to showcase some of the band's strongest lyricism - an acoustic guitar ballad Caterpillar. Lily's delivery is soft to begin with, singing of the ever-so-familiar feelings of anxiety, with lyrics such as 'know that I'll feel better with the tap on, something about the water running down my side' / 'caterpillar hatching in my chest'. The chorus continues: 'is there something inside of me? / 'making me believe, that black is white' / 'is there something I can't defeat?' / 'maybe I should try and sleep tonight, sleep tonight'. As the instrumentation builds, with swelling strings, so does the rawness and emotion in Lily's voice.
Figure It Out jumps straight back into the grunge-bitten vengeance Flo Ro are known for: catchy guitar, lots of distortion, and a carefree vocal delivery. Closing the EP is Heavy, with lyrics 'tell me, tell me it's not that heavy, lie to my face and beg me not to cry, say it's alright, and we'll let it slide'. A whirlwind of a track with impressive production, the song finishes with just piano and Lily's unfiltered vocals.
Fall Back sees Florence Road firmly establishing their sound - and at such an early point in their career, it's impressive. With a range of styles being explored whilst simultaneously maintaining an artistic identity, it's exciting to see what the band will do next.