Trust Fall started out as the big solo leap of Erica Leshon, resident of Olympia, WA, and member of a diverse (and now mostly dormant) pantheon of passionate DIY sound-peddlers such as Margy Pepper, Prank War, Pines, and Tankini. Trust Fall sounded pretty radical to my ears when I encountered the project around the time their EP
Giants of Love was released in 2018, and they certainly appeared to be thriving and flowing with the currents of cutting-edge culture at the time. Of course, times change, and they're not really riding any kind of a wave at the moment, but I'm still glad to see that they're around and sorta doing their thing. Trust Fall's sound mainly consists of softly distorted, lo-fi, reverb-heavy and bashfully grungy bedroom punk and emo, and it's stayed consistent from their earlier releases to their most recent, 2023's
You Can Glow in the Dark EP. The songs here trade in the same coy punk and flirty feedback-pedal-pushing twee in the vein of Waxahatchee and All Dogs that dominated the scores for underground haunts and unlicensed gig spaces in the latter half of the 2010s. The album begins beautifully with a credo of contemplation and vulnerability that communicates a kind of solidarity that perseveres through adversity in the form of opener and title track "Glow in the Dark." It is followed by the buzz-hook pivoting wheel of fire dubbed "Revisiting" and a hot-blooded, jangle-fisted teardown they call "Not Dead Yet." After that, the band escapes from the trouble they've stirred up via the sizzling and cathartic, caravanning joust of "Clear Blue Sky," leading the way to the late-bloomer bop of "Little Lost," the deceptively inclement bluster of "Storm Inside," and the sundry and sympathetic climax "Nobody Knows." Whether you want to day drink and smoke American Spirits on a friend's porch or sit in your kitchen, sipping coffee and watching the rain through your back window, this
You Can Glow In The Dark can supply the ambiance for whatever self-replenishing vibe you are in most in need of.
