paris falls

There’s something very, very cool about actually getting to hear a band growing up, in the process of finding and evolving and tweaking their particular sound. And believe it or not, it’s a pretty rare thing, at least in the modern, rarefield realm of indie labels and low-to-the-ground bands, where bands come and go like different sets of clothes the musicians put on and take back off again after an album or two. Before a band can even really find its footing, it collapses, everybody going off to side projects or leaving town or something. There’s never enough time to watch the band grow.

I think that’s partly why I enjoy the hell out of every album Paris Falls puts out. Reverse Mirror Image is #4 in as many years (and the first to not just be labeled Paris Falls [Insert Roman Numeral Here]) and even in that relatively short span, you can listen from one album to the next and hear what sure sounds like an evolution.

Paris Falls I saw the band at its bluesiest and scrappiest, all bitterness and rough-edged chords, while Paris Falls II and III had the band branching out into more overtly ’60s-ish psych-rock territory, coming off like David Gilmour-driven Pink Floyd; things slowed down and got more mellow/melancholy, and yet, the band still made it work. They made the music still sound like “Paris Falls” throughout.

Now, with Reverse Mirror Image, that same evolution continues, albeit into territory that’s a bit unfamiliar for the band, at least on their albums. I was flat-out stunned the first time I heard the gentle, McCartney-esque pop that rolls through most of Image, especially on “Civilized” or “Sway,” but once I got over the shock of it, I was (and still am) impressed with how far they’ve come. Ray Brown’s voice still sounds nicely rough, with that near-trademark bitter, half-melodic smile evidenced on “Song Number One” and “Big Surprise,” but he’s tempered it somewhat, it sounds like.

There’s a heck of a pop influence going on, more than I’d really noticed before with these folks, with echoes of the aforementioned Paul McCartney and his erstwhile bandmates, plus Elvis Costello and David Bowie. Early single “Big Surprise” is kind of in that camp, as is the friendly-yet-defiant album closer “You.”

On top of that, Image is easily the band’s most sophisticated release in terms of production, with a surprising number of layers to the overall sound, gentle washes of guitar sound, a very “clean” feel, and arrangements that can breathe some and unfold slowly. For the first time, I found myself really-and-truly trying to listen to the lyrics, rather than just letting ‘em float by and catching what I could. Everything sounds warm and retro, but it’s still smoothed-out and clean.

The result is tracks like “Sway,” which is a bit like a low-key, minimalist White Stripes song done Beatles-style. It’s gentle and tumbling, rolling down the road with an insistent, bluesy shuffle, with Jack White-gone-British Invasion vocals, gorgeous backing/duet vocals from Jen Brown, and an understated string section. It’s a great, close-to-the-chest, melancholy little rumination, and it’s beautiful. (Side note to the band: let Jen sing more often, okay? Seriously, y’all.) Listen to it back-to-back with “Hazard Street Bridge,” off Paris Falls I, and you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a completely different band.

Actually, scratch that — that part’s not true. Because even though the band’s branching out here, trying their hand at songs like “Handle,” with its introductory hip-hop drums, fuzzy synths, and sleaze-metal guitar lines, they’ve managed to hold tight to their identity. Take “Zero For A Day,” for another example, where the Paris Falls crew (which consists of Ray and Jen Brown and drummer Mike Deleon, by the way) meld a delicate, folk-bluesy structure to an awesomely raw jam; there’re moments in that “Tomorrow Never Knows” guitar haze that seriously remind me of “Home,” the first song I ever even heard of the band.

Image is still Paris Falls — it’s just the revised, older-and-wiser Paris Falls, Paris Falls 3.0, where the band’s realized that they can turn down a little, sing a little more softly, and stil make some amazingly cool music. Here’s to watching the evolution roll on.

- Jeremy Hart

By Andrew Dansby

The upshot to having a recording studio in your home is the ability to record a musical idea anytime inspiration strikes, falls or stumbles, which is the case with Ray and Jen Brown, the husband/wife team of multi-instrumentalists who, with drummer Michael Deleon, records as Paris Falls.

“He’ll be out in the yard, and all of the sudden he’ll run inside and start playing drums,” Jen says. “I’ll be like, ‘What happened?’ But it’s nice to have that outlet there. Your options are limitless.”

“That’s the good thing about living out in the country,” Ray says. “You don’t have to worry about making any noise. You just record whenever you want.”

Ray ultimately hopes it will end up being a destination for other bands that want to record. For the time the Browns’ set-up in Rosharon has also allowed Paris Falls to be prolific. The just-released Reverse Mirror Image is the fourth album the band has put together since 2006 along with some singles.

Whether or not the band’s name is rooted in wartime, the German siege is a fitting metaphor for Paris Falls’ sound, which is a combination of peaceful and forceful. There are the delicate touches, such as the keys and strings that delicately open the new album (fittingly on Song number one) only to be blasted into a hard-driving rock song that also finds time for a proggy little detour. There’s also a deft balance between simplicity and complexity; some tunes are bare bones, others are layered carefully. That breadth makes sense when the Browns start talking favored tunes that span Minor Threat to the Beatles, Wings to Bad Religion. A midsong break on the tune Paid Vacation is a clear nod to Pink Floyd. Ray recalls his first music purchase, Ozzy Osbourne’s Diary of a Madman, picked up at Gulfgate Mall in 1982.

“I’ve got that heavy bug right now,” he says. “I want to do some heavier stuff. Not necessarily with this band.”

Jen quickly replies, “Or maybe with this band. It could happen.” She laughs. “We end up in Black Sabbath territory a lot when the three of us are just jamming. I think it translates into what we do. It’s all just rock ’n’ roll.”

Which is what brought them together. Both had played in bands around the city for several years. They met six years ago and quickly bonded during a conversation about Paul McCartney’s Ram. “It was a deal-maker for us,” Jen says. “A few months later we were married.”

Then came the studio. Ray points out that the group had an album before it ever had a gig. That’s when the group brought Deleon on board. A fourth member, guitarist Jason Wiltshire, joins the band as time allows.

The Browns spend a lot of time thinking (and talking) about the actual production of the music. Other details are nudged aside. Weeks before Reverse Mirror Image’s release, they’re still not entirely certain what all the songs are called. “The naming comes a little later,” Jen says, after Paid Vacation is referenced by name, failing to trigger recognition by either Brown. “Oh, is that the seven-minute song?” Ray asks. “Those titles are still so new to us.”

Proximity to the work space also allows a degree of patience so songs can develop over time. Some fragments from Reverse Mirror Image songs date back to their first recordings, like the riff on You. “It seems like there’ve been versions of that song on every album,” Ray says.

Jen adds, “But some of them come to us instantly. They’re usually the catchiest ones. Sometimes they get written and recorded in the span of an hour.”

Depending on the degree to which one embraces new technology, the Browns are Luddites or classicists. Ray admits to “gritting my teeth about getting on iTunes.”

The two still prefer playing an album to letting a computer shuffle things. The same applies to social media, which the members haven’t ignored, but they’re also wary of it as a promotional tool.

“We’re trying not to get caught up too much in the technology,” Jen says. “Too many log-on IDs and passwords and whatnot. That’s not what we’re about.”

She laughs: “We’re just protective of how we come across. We don’t want to be a band that’s bugging people all the time. We want people to discover us the right way. We don’t feel that sense that we have to get this to people right now.”

They seem more interested in winning over listeners one at a time, one song at a time.

Ray brings up an Australian fan who created a stop-motion animated video with Legos for the band’s tune Walk Away. It’s a surreal clip that starts as a bloody western and then switches to a Star Wars setting not because of Star Wars’ homages to old westerns like The Searchers but rather because the fan ran out of Western-themed Lego pieces. (Nevertheless it’s a great clip.)

They also hear from time to time from a fan in Argentina.

“I could see us as being that band that’s big in some small town in Argentina,” Jen says. “With the kids chasing us down the street. And I’d be happy if that’s all it amounted to. It’s great just to produce albums and have this catalog and at the end of the day, when we’re in our 80s looking back on it to say, ‘These were my accomplishments,’ and not care whether or not the world gave a crap. It’s about, ‘Do I like it?’ And that’s what drives us. We like playing it.”

- 29-95

Uh, July? Time sure gets away from you, doesn’t it? At least we managed to pick up the new Paris Falls 7” (“Big Surprise” b/w “It’s A Charade”) before their show at the Mink (3718 Main Street) tonight, Friday August 13, with Side Arms, the Tontons and Roky Moon & Bolt. The A-side of this quite attractive sea-green (glow-in-the-dark, apparently) disc is a cheery, bouncy but surprisingly lightweight piece of power-pop. Ray Brown’s forceful yet pleasant vocals can’t last for more than a minute or so, with about that much more devoted to a repeated two-measure guitar/keyboard riff. It’s fun but over very quickly. “It’s a Charade” bites off a little more, balancing a gritty acoustic guitar-driven verse with a chorus and electric solo that are melodically strong yet still economical in the extreme. Let it not be said that Paris Falls overstays their welcome. Would it surprise you to learn that this band once impersonated Rush? Comparatively, the fact that this is the band’s fourth single on their own label, Paper Weapons records, should be less of a shocker. Try streaming the band’s forthcoming LP for free at soundcloud.

Daniel Mee - 29-95

Space City Rock review: Paris Falls "Big Surprise/It's a Charade" single

While I’m pretty sure that’s not what it’s talking about, the A-side of the new 7-inch single from retro-rockers Paris Falls, “Big Surprise,” actually does find itself a little ways off from what I’ve come to think of as the band’s main musical neighborhood. There’s less of an overt psych-rock feel here, less of the Pink Floyd influence they flew proudly on Volume III, their last full-length, and in its place there’s more of a straight-ahead glam-pop sound.

The track bumps and stomps along, a bitter, half-snarled chunk of retro-sounding pop that’s far more David Bowie than Roger Waters. Guitarist Jen Brown plays it cool ’til about a third of the way through and then sends some nicely “Suffragette City”-like guitar lines spiraling through frontman Ray Brown’s layers of warm, fuzzy-sounding electric piano(?). The nearly-twinned guitars bring to mind vintage British power-pop, too, although the Paris Falls gang are far too soul-esque to head down that road.

B-side “It’s A Charade” does something similar, although it goes off in a different way entirely, riding a jangly, rustic-sounding groove that’s so ’60s folk-pop that I keep expecting Brown to start singing about how there ain’t no one for to give him no pain. In fact, I was thrown off by the vocals right at the start — they sound so different from the Paris Falls vocal sound I’ve heard ’til now that I honestly thought it might be drummer Mike DeLeon doing the singing this time around.

But hey, I’ve got no complaints, in the end. “It’s A Charade” isn’t my favorite Paris Falls track but could still beat down a roomful of similarly-retro rock bands and not break a sweat, while “Big Surprise” makes me hopeful there’ll be more straight-up, Brit-influenced stuff like it on the band’s next full-length. Keep it coming…

(Oh, and yes, the record does glow in the dark. Which is pretty freaking neat, I have to say.)
Jeremy Hart



- Space City Rock

Music with Jameson & Lone Star: Paris Falls @ Sigs / Tody Castillo & Wild Moccasins @ Rudyards 08 August 2008
posted by Ramon Medina - LP4 @ 12:01 AM

Paris Falls, may have gotten a late start at Sig's Lagoon and had to leave their patented light show in the van but none of that mattered once they hit the first notes of Shelter from the newest album. Damn they kicked it with some emotion and the room sounded great - intimate and with some unexpectedly great acoustics. You'd think that a long rectangular room like that would sound like crap but the high ceilings probably made up for any rectangle issues because Michael Deleon's drums sounded massive - even when compared to the albums. Mind you, the albums sound great but Friday it was like hearing the albums with a bigger and fatter sound. You start with a great room mix then throw-in some solid tunes and the rest is gravy. The audience's enthusiasm on Friday night was surely a testament to that. For the uninitiated, Paris Falls are a band whose harmonies, guitars, and that crazy organ/electric piano sound evoke the more rough and tumble side of late Let It Be Beatles but that description is much too simplistic. After all, the important thing isn't the point of reference but where they take it and Paris Falls shouldn't be accused of mere mimicry. Like, Gold Sounds, Paris Falls seems to have gone back and looked at some classic rock, torn it apart, and rebuilt it to make their own statement. Go and listen to Shelter off the new album or the exceptional pop gem Lucky from their last album and see if you don't pick a moon dog and radiate everything you are.

- ramon medina

Houston Calling Vol. II Review


On their latest effort, husband and wife team Raymond and Jennifer Brown (Meowcifer) concoct a mixture of Seventies psychedelia and low-key late Eighties underground rock and toss in another very healthy dose of The Beatles. With subtle harmonies, melodic drones, and simple chords intact, Paris Falls tout their classic rock influences proudly–you'll hear hints of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, among others–but they thankfully don't completely rely on the tried and true. Instead, they take what they've learned and create calm and warm songs that seem to flow seamlessly into each other.

"Lonely Goodbye" and "Wish You Well" build on the solid pop of last year's excellent Vol. I, but again, Paris Falls don't tie themselves to any static sound. The last quarter of "Shelter" and the fuzzed-out, atmospheric standout "Untitled" rival many instrumental post-rock bands while "Repeater" crushes most better-known modern psych-rock bands. It's this range, coupled with the band's ability to cross genres while maintaining the album's flow, that makes Vol. II one of this year's finest and most compelling releases. –David A. Cobb
- David Cobb

Skyline network Vol II Review

We first got the gams for Paris Falls back last February when we caught wind of their stellar track "Shelter". Not shortly thereafter, we finally got our hands on their freshly minted debut full length Vol. I, only to discover that the song wasn't even on it. Turns out, the band was on such a roll when they put the wraps on their first record, that they never stopped writing and recording, and had Vol. II almost completely in the bag by the time its predecessor had gotten the mastering and packaging treatment. It's important, therefore, to see Vol. II not as a sequel, but as a continuation of something that you'd only seen the fist part of (think Lord of the Rings rather than The Matrix if you require a Hugo Weaving example). And yet, the songwriting, the engineering and the performances on Vol. II shows that the Paris Falls was already evolving, improving on their writing, their pop-craft and their engineering.

It plays well into our schlocky writing style, then, that the album opener is titled "Progress" and is a departure from form, simply Ray Brown's heart spelunking vocals over a chunky guitar. "Shelter", whose Rhodes piano smashes, jagged guitar and reversed Starr drums outro, is still on our down-about-it go too list and sets the tone for the record - expect jubilation, veneration and a lingering kiss of gray morning regret. Vol. II features a greater diversity of textures than its predecessor, while still sticking to essentially the same instrument pallet. A favorite example of how this plays out is the initially waltzy "Satellite", with its Bernard Herrmann-esque violin stabs and lonely piano giving way to sunspot cool electric piano and tambourine and eventually succumbing to full on prog rock guitar importations. The album closes with "White Rose," a closer that effortlessly puts the cap on both volumes of the band's output to date, fading out in the end while the music continues on strong. If there was ever a hint that you were in the midst of a trilogy, this would be it.

But given that we haven't yet heard any tracks off this imaginary Vol. III, perhaps the band is taking a pause and stepping into a new narrative, a new branch of aural elixirs to itch that evolving pop ailment that growing on, marriage and parenthood can bring (note - NOT adult contemporary music). Were this the case, we'd be stoked, but we can't even say for a minute we'd be disappointed if their next record was a return of the king. Recommended.

- ADR

Space City Rock Vol. II Review


In general, I've tried to make a habit of keeping a bit of critical distance from bands that make their living by digging up the musical past. Sure, I enjoy the hell out of bands like The Redwalls or The Darkness in part because of the fact that they mine styles that evoke a certain era, or a certain memory, or what-have-you, but at the same time, I have to force myself to back it off a bit and remember that it's almost a "fake" kind of appeal for just that reason.
Bands like Paris Falls, though, make me want to throw said habit to the winds and fall head-over-heels in love. At their core, they're basically, well, a classic rock band. Crunchy, loud (but not too loud) guitars, an organ sound the band nearly swiped from Question Mark & the Mysterians, that raw, rock-bellower voice of Raymond Brown's that carries hints of Eric Burdon, Phil Lynott, and even Roger Daltrey, those solid-yet-all-over-the-place drums (courtesy of Mike Deleon, ex-about a billion Houston bands), and even that "warm," analog-like sound -- the whole thing is bluesy, shuddering rock that sounds like it slipped off of one of those Nuggets comps '60s gems. I swear to God, if you slapped these guys up on some classic rock station next to The Who, Steppenwolf, or Pink Floyd, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference.
The latter band, in fact, is all over the place on Paris Falls' Vol. II, from the Floyd-meets-Aerosmith (circa "Dream On," mind you, no later) track "Repeater" on through to the trippy, soaring "White Rose." There's a purple-tinged neo-psychedelic rock influence splattered throughout, the music shambling along in a haze every once in a while before it crashes back into lucidity. I keep finding myself thinking of "Wish You Were Here," in part because several of the tracks are downright sleepy, albeit in a good way. Then there's the Beatlesque "Satellite," which incorporates some nice strings and complex arrangements while still staying relatively low-key.
"Shelter," on the other hand, starts off ferocious and angry but ends up stumbling to an end like a drunk getting belligerent and loud right before falling hard into bed. That track, though, is probably the most like the band's previous release, Vol. 1, that you're likely to find here. Most of the rest of the album feels bleak and melancholy, desperate and sad; it's nowhere near as straight-ahead "rock" as the band's first album, and there's only a hint of the band's bitter swagger left over from that album. With this outing, they've headed in more of an introspective, vulnerable, heart-on-the-sleeve direction. And frankly, it's beautiful, and heartbreaking, and awesome -- all of that and a heck of a lot more.
The thing about picking up elements of musical styles that are firmly rooted in days of yore is that you've got to be doing it for the right reasons. If you're up there on a stage windmilling like Pete Townsend because you think it'll make you look cool, then no, fuck you, it never will. If, on the other hand, you genuinely love a particular sound and want to use that sound to express your own thoughts, emotions, and ideas, well...you just might be golden.
[Paris Falls is playing their CD release party 2/28/08 at Boondocks, with DJ Jason Puffer.] (Jeremy Hart // 02/28/08 - Space City Rock

Best Mom and Pop Band (2007)
Paris Falls
Paris Falls is the brainchild of Jennifer and Raymond Brown. When the two are not perfecting their musical offspring, they're raising their biological one. The pair creates some of the best rock around and recorded most of their first album, Paris Falls Vol. I, after the birth of their son. Pending a good babysitter, you can see them and their backing band around town at least once a month playing their Rhodes-organ infused, Beatle-esque ditties. Time will only tell if Junior will pick up a guitar and help out mom and pop with killer kid solos. Seriously, that would be the best show ever. Get on it, Browns — we'll be waiting with a Best Local Toddler Rocker award.
- Houston Press

non alignment pact vol.1 review

Paris Falls - Vol 1 - Self Released


This is pretty primordial stuff from a band with a with a lot of potential. Right off the cuff, the band strikes gold with Lucky - a track whose guitar line leads into a gorgeous vocal melody that would make John Lennon's ghost smile. And make no mistake of it, this band has a clear Beatles fetish which is both it's biggest strength and weakness as, at times, the influence hang a little too heavily over the songs. The album has a great cohesive flow about it that demands it be taken as a whole and not song by song. Yet, something keeps the album from being great and it's hard to pin down why given that whenever a song pops up I think, "Hey, that's a really good song." Maybe it's because lovely and outstanding song like New Rome sneak between the merely good songs it makes you realize that these guys are only just at the very early stages of finding out just what they can do. We await the follow up with baited breath.


- non alignment pact

I think Volume III works best when viewed as part of a bigger whole, right alongside Paris Falls' previous efforts, Vol. 1 and Vol. II. Going by the band's choice of titles for the three albums so far, it sure seems like they intended there to be some kind of progression, and even if they didn't, well, the theme definitely fits when Volume III rolls into view.
Looking back at the first disc of the trilogy, Paris Falls seems like an a much angrier, more bitter band, with guitarist/singer Ray Brown snarling and spitting venom as much as singing. The followup, Vol. II, headed tentatively down a somewhat more low-key road, trading bitterness and attitude for thoughtful depression; while I definitely liked it, the album seemed uncertain, unsure of itself and where it was supposed to be headed. With Volume III, though, the band sounds like it's gotten where it was going all along.
The sound here is still very similar to that on II, but with less out-and-out melancholy and more of a forward-facing outlook. Take "Obsolete," for example; the song's fairly straight-up pop-rock, with a nicely jangly, almost Elliott Smith-like melody, and while it's resigned and down, to be sure, there's still a hint of relief that at least something (whatever that something happens to be) is finally settled. There're heavy, heavy nods to Floydian psych-rock here, definitely, as with II, but now it's less the slit-your-wrists-and-bleed variety and more the it-all-ends-anyway-so-why-worry variety.
That comfortable feeling allows Paris Falls to both stretch out some, as on the drifting, woozy, seven-and-a-half-minute "Delay," which is all shaky/shimmery guitars and David Gilmour vocals, and to head for sunnier territory, like they do on "Goodmorning," which is louder and a lot more Beatlesque than most of what the band's been doing lately. It's also the best moment on Volume III, its quasi-psychedelic strummed guitars and roaring vocal melody reaching for the skies in a way Paris Falls rarely seems to since Vol. 1.
Of course, part of the reason Volume III shoves up so tightly against 1 and II is because of the band's all-encompassing love of that warm, '70s-sounding analog vibe. The band declares their allegiance in the very first bit of crackly, staticky record noise on the album ("Intro"), and even when things get strange, Volume III sounds like it was recorded love, straight to tape at some dingy dive on the wrong side of town.
To their credit, Paris Falls still steer clear of the whole revivalist thing. Regardless of the fact that Volume III does point backwards to a bunch of the standard "classic rock" benchmarks, the band doesn't play like followers, not by a long shot; they play like they've absorbed all the old stuff and are making something new out of it, not just within its boundaries. Better still, the music here sounds a lot more deliberate and interesting than the music made by a lot of similar bands.
So much of this sort of thing seems faddish, throwaway music that you'll like the first time and then file away, but Paris Falls write songs that are smart and heartfelt and pained and that definitely don't fade away after just one listen.
jeremy hart 6/20/2009 - space city rock