Destined to Fall – Stepping Sideways (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Making music is often a case of taking the references and influences from the past and moulding them into a new music sonic experience for a whole new generation. The familiarity of the old and the freshness of the present blended together to head towards a new and exciting future. And that is exactly what Stepping Sideways do. They carry a torch that was first lit by the likes of Led Zeppelin, rock being dragged kicking and screaming from its blues club origins to be shaped into something theatrical, larger than life, dramatic, escapist, the soundtrack to other realms and future visions. It has since been honed and shaped by seventies prog-rockers, eighties new-wave of metal, nineties alternative rockers and so on to the present day where this band take that flame into the future.

Destined To Fall is big, sweeping, full of drive and drama and powered by soaring guitar licks and raw, razor-wire riffs, thundering drums and pounding bass lines. But it also has subtleties and intricacies too, gentle breaks to match the angst and energy. It may be sonically muscle bound but it is musically toned too.

Rock may not have changed too much over the decades but more than any other genre it found what it was good at and stuck to the plan. All modern bands have to do is take the template and add their own personality to it, to bend rather than break the formula, to revise rather than revamp and create something that fits with the modern rock tastes but forms part of that glorious body of existing work. Stepping Sideways is all too aware of this and knowing what is require of them, fill the role to perfection.