Metal Underground.com

There are a few key phrases that make the average metal fan a bit squeamish – terms like AOR, Christian rock, glam guitars, and pop. But all of these could be used to describe Blanc Faces' "Falling From The Moon." This love-centric album released under Frontiers Records is a poppy, 80’s inspired collage of upbeat, happy music that lacks no real substance.

Having said that, there’s nothing particularly wrong with the album; it’s logical and well-planned. The vocals are pleasant and the instruments are solid. But while the songs range in theme from happy love to sad love to unrequited love, you’d never know it based on the tunes. They’re all the same formula, with dispassionate vocals. It isn’t until "Don’t Take It Away," the eighth track, that we hear the slightest hint of emotion in the lyrics, but someone failed to notify the instruments that this song is about pain and heartbreak. In the next to last track, "I Will," the lyrics are a plea to "Take care of this heart of mine," yet they are delivered in a fashion reminiscent of Top 40 boy bands.

Robbie and Brian LaBlanc compare themselves to AOR 80’s bands like Toto, Survivor and Foreigner, but I’d call them a Bryan Adams meets Warrant ballads band. After all, there are a few brief glimpses of glam guitar wails. But CC Deville they are not, and I doubt they even recognize the name. What’s more unfortunate is that these short deviations from the formula seem almost obligatory.

I use the term Christian rock loosely in describing this album. It’s not that the songs are Christian in theme, but that the sound is so similar. We’re not talking Skillet or Stryper, but rather the canned music so popular at youth conventions and on televised church services. It’s pleasant, poppy, predictable – and totally flat. There’s no variety or layering of different sounds to create a rich composition. It’s simply there, a repetitive formula that seems to work for the masses, but becomes monotonous after the first few songs.