Line #34 Music/Fallujah


1	[floatboxright:
2	Influences:
3	+Music/{{Necrophagist}}, Music/{{Obscura}}, Music/TheBlackDahliaMurder, Music/TheFaceless, Music/{{Atheist}}, Music/DecrepitBirth, Music/{{Psycroptic}}, Music/DeedsOfFlesh, Music/SeveredSavior, Odious Mortem, Music/SpawnOfPossession, Music/{{Gorod}}, Music/{{Cynic}}, Music/{{Meshuggah}}, The Contortionist, Exivious, Music/{{Radiohead}}, Music/{{Deftones}}, Music/KingCrimson, Music/PinkFloyd, Music/ThePolice, Music/TheSmiths
4	]
5	Fallujah is an American progressive death metal band. Characterized by their highly eclectic yet totally cohesive sound that combines elements from countless different forms of music that appeal to its members, they have become a fast-rising force in modern death metal and are poised to become big-names.
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7	Formed in San Francisco, California in 2007 by Alex Hofmann (studio guitars, vocals), Scott Carstairs (lead guitar), Suliman Arghandiwal (vocals), Dan Wissinger (bass), and Tommy Logan (drums), most of the initial lineup swiftly folded, leaving only Hofmann and Carstairs. Brandon Hoberg and Rob Maramonte quickly joined on bass and rhythm guitar, respectively, while Andrew Baird replaced Logan. Come 2009, they released a demo to moderate fanfare along with the ''Leper Colony'' EP, while Maramonte and Hoberg both left and were replaced by Anthony Borges and Rob Morey on their respective instruments, though Borges left the following year and was replaced by a returning Maramonte. Another demo was released, and a deal with Unique Leader Records was inked sometime around then as well. Come late 2011, ''The Harvest Wombs'' was released to much fanfare and critical acclaim, and the band slowly but surely began finding their way onto various high-profile tours, culminating in a spot on the Summer Slaughter Tour opening act ballot that turned into an appearance on the Slaughter Survivors Tour. There were still some difficulties, however, as Baird was busy battling cancer and thus was too sick to make a good deal of the shows; while he was still an official member of the band, Chason Westmoreland filled in for him until he was healthy enough to man the kit once again.
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9	2013, however, was the breakthrough year. Kicking things off with a three-song digital EP that made a sizable impact, they quickly followed it up with their first European tour in support of Music/{{Suffocation}}. While Maramonte did leave the band to focus on The Zenith Process and Music/AllShallPerish (where he replaced a departing Ben Orum on a temporary live basis), it didn't prove to be much of an issue. 2014 brought even bigger things, namely the induction of Brian James on rhythm guitar, a slot on the Summer Slaughter Tour, and the release of ''The Flesh Prevails'', their sophomore full-length, which has gained rave reviews and near-unanimous praise. 2015 proceeded uneventfully (aside from a new deal with Nuclear Blast Records) as they went through the support cycle, and they began recording a third full-length by the name of ''Dreamless'' around the end of the yea, which saw a 2016 release.
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11	As of July 2017, Alex Hoffman has made the decision to depart for personal reasons. Adam Cody (Wretched) did the first several shows without Hoffman, while Monte Barnard (The Kennedy Veil) is doing the rest; after the tour concluded, Monte was offered the job and turned it down. After a lengthy wait, Antonio Palermo (Underling) was announced as their new vocalist, and ''Undying Light'', their first full-length with him on vocals, was announced for a March 2019 release. While an official announcement has not yet been made, Nico Santora (Lillake) appears to have also been hired on as a full member after having done most of the touring for 2019.
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13	!!Discography:
14	* ''Demo 2009''
15	* ''Leper Colony'' (2009) - EP
16	* ''Demo 2010''
17	* ''The Harvest Wombs'' (2011)
18	* ''Nomadic'' (2013) - EP
19	* ''The Flesh Prevails'' (2014)
20	* ''Dreamless'' (2016)
21	* ''Undying Light'' (2019)
22	* ''Empyrean'' (2022)
23
24	!!'''Members:'''
25	!!!Current:
26	* Scott Carstairs - lead guitar, backing vocals (2007-present)
27	* Kyle Schaefer - lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2022-present)
28	* Evan Brewer - bass (2022-present)
29	* Sam Mooradian - guitar (2023-present)
30
31	!!!Former:
32	* Dan Wissinger - bass (2007)
33	* Brandon "Brando" Hoberg - bass (2007-2009)
34	* Tommy Logan - drums (2007)
35	* Sulliman Arghandiwal - lead vocals (2007-2008)
36	* Ron Maramonte - rhythm guitar (2008-2009, 2010-2013)
37	* Anthony Borges - rhythm guitar (2009-2010)
38	* Alex Hofmann - lead vocals, programming (2007-2017), rhythm guitar (2007-2008)
39	* Brian James - rhythm guitar (2012-2013, 2013-2018)
40	* Rob Morey - bass (2009-2022)
41	* Anthony Palermo - lead vocals, programming (2019-2022)
42	* Nico Santora - rhythm guitar (2019-2022)
43	* Andrew Baird - drums (2007-2023)
44	----
45	!!PARADISE AWAITS AS I UNFOLD! BLEEDING TROPES INTO THE SOIL!:
46	* AscendedExtra: Antonio Palermo was a longtime friend of the band whose own band had had Rob Morey in its ranks for some time. He was an easy and logical choice. Sam Mooradian, meanwhile, started out as a live session guitarist in May of 2022, did the rest of the touring for that year, and was eventually made a full member around the middle of 2023.
47	* TheBandMinusTheFace: Likely will be the case without Alex.
48	* ConceptAlbum: ''Dreamless'' is a loose concept album based around various movies that the band is fond of.
49	* {{Deathcore}}: Their demos are cut from a prog-core mold, while ''Leper Colony'' was more of a [[BlackMetal blackened]] core album. They dropped this sound with ''The Harvest Wombs''.
50	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Pretty much everything before ''The Flesh Prevails''. The first and third demos were technical/progressive deathcore, while ''Leper Colony'' was a blackened deathcore album. While ''The Harvest Wombs'' shed the deathcore elements, it still lacked the shoegaze and dream pop elements that would come to define their work and was firmly in the tech/prog pool. Even ''Nomadic'', which introduced the shoegaze elements, was still firmly based in the sound of ''The Harvest Wombs''.
51	* EpicRocking: "Artifacts" (7:23), "The Harvest Wombs" (7:21), "Celestial Resonance" (7:04), "The Dead Sea" (6:34), "Venom upon the Blade" (6:34), "Dreamless" (6:18), "Wind for Wings" (6:14), "Ancient Dialectic" (6:10), "Into the Eventide" (6:03), and "Embrace Oblivion" (6:00).
52	* GenreMashup: Mixes elements of technical death metal, melodic black metal, progressive metal, jazz fusion, shoegaze, darkwave, ambient, dream pop, synthwave, and trip-hop.
53	* {{Instrumentals}}: "The Flame Surreal", "The Harvest Wombs", "Allure", and "Celestial Resonance".
54	* LargeAndInCharge: Scott Carstairs is over six feet tall and has a heavy natural build, and is the leader and overall face of the band.
55	* LeadBassist: Rob Morey is a Type A, as is Evan Brewer, who was famous for his prodigious technical ability and instantly recognizable "double-thumb" slap style well before he was in Fallujah.
56	* LighterAndSofter: ''The Flesh Prevails'', which has a far more dreamy, ethereal feel and generally doesn't really focus on being heavy.
57	* LoudnessWar: A big problem on all of their releases, which is fairly jarring when you consider their influences. Even among their discography, ''The Flesh Prevails'' is infamous for this. The band and the engineer said they were going for a "larger than life" sound on that album, but admitted they fucked up and took it too far. Fortunately, this album has been re-released with a different, much more dynamic mastering on vinyl.
58	* MetalScream: Hofmann is a Type 2 who can also pull off Type 3s, Palermo was a hybrid of a Type 1 and a Type 3, and Schaefer is a Type 2 and Type 3, sporting more of a hoarse rasp and generally falling somewhere between Alex and Antonio stylistically.
59	* NewSoundAlbum: Multiple:
60	** ''Leper Colony'' dialed down the prog influences and dialed up both the black metal and core influences. It didn't stick and the band swept it under the rug.
61	** ''The Harvest Wombs'' dropped the core, expanded on the prog, and picked up some eclectic tendencies.
62	** ''Nomadic'' bumped up the eclectic sound even further and introduced female vocals, as well as changing the lyrical approach to more personal, meaningful subject matter.
63	** ''The Flesh Prevails'' downplayed the tech in favor of a far more prominent focus on atmosphere, playing up the shoegaze, trip hop, post-rock, and dream pop elements and introducing clean vocals.
64	** ''Undying Light'' eliminated what little tech was left for an album that is basically a prog-death/shoegaze fusion.
65	* ObligatoryBondageSong: "Carved from Stone".
66	* OneWomanWail: Byanca Munoz's spots on "The Dead Sea" and "Venom Upon the Blade".
67	* OutOfGenreExperience: ''Nomadic'' had the ambient track "Silent", ''The Flesh Prevails'' had the trip hop track "Alone with You", and ''Dreamless'' had the synthwave tracks "Fidelio" and "Les Silences".
68	* ProgressiveMetal: Had elements of this on ''The Harvest Wombs'', but really started to push this with ''Nomadic''.
69	* PurpleProse: Pretty rampant in their older material thanks to the lyrical approach boiling down to lots of pseudo-metaphysical and philosophical rambling. Hofmann switched to more personal lyrics on ''Nomadic'' because he felt that he wasn't actually saying anything of value and wanted to write lyrics that actually meant something to him.
70	* RevolvingDoorBand: Had a ton of lineup shifts early on but gradually settled down.
71	* {{Shoegazing}}: Their releases starting with ''Nomadic'' featured increasingly prominent elements of this, and ''Undying Light'' was where this truly took prominence.
72	* SopranoAndGravel: Kyle Schaefer does clean vocals as well as harsh vocals; as per Kyle, he was originally a clean vocalist and only started doing harshes later on.
73	* SpecialGuest: [[Music/AllShallPerish Francesco Artusato]] contributed a guest solo on "Become One", while Byanca Munoz (Whirr) contributed guest vocals to "The Dead Sea" and "Venom Upon the Blade". Meanwhile, ''The Flesh Prevails'' features Scott's guitar teacher Music/ChristianMuenzner on "Allure" and the dream pop artist Roniit Alkayam on multiple tracks, and ''Dreamless'' featured guest vocal spots from Tori Letzler, Katie Thompson (Chiasma), and Mike Semesky (Ordinance, Interloper), plus a guest guitar spot from Tymon Kruidenier (Our Oceans, ex-Exivious). On the live end, Chason Westmoreland was Andrew Baird's fill-in until he was healthy enough to resume his duties, while Nicola Gruhn (Virvum), [[Music/{{Arkaik}} Greg Paulson]], [[Music/{{Aborted}} Danny Tunker]], Nico Santora (Lillake), and Sam Mooradian have been live guitar fill-ins (with Santora and later Mooradian eventually getting hired on full-time), [[Music/{{Abiotic}} Kilian Duarte]] is an on-call live bass fill-in, and both [[Music/{{Alterbeast}} Monte Barnard]] and Adam Cody (Wretched) served as live vocalists until Antonio Palermo joined full-time.
74	* TechnicalDeathMetal: ''The Harvest Wombs''. ''Nomadic'' was also this to some degree but represented a bridge between that style and the more progressive/atmospheric leanings of ''The Flesh Prevails'', and the band isn't sure if they even are a death metal act at this point. They dropped this entirely on ''Undying Light''; as per Scott Carstairs, they were all at the point in their career where they had more than proven themselves as technical musicians and had gone from wanting to challenge themselves as players to just wanting to make music that they really felt in their hearts, but they didn't consciously choose to stop being tech so much as they just made no effort to write music in that style, and as far as they're concerned, people who miss the old style can just listen to Virvum and Irreversible Mechanism.
75	* TeenGenius: Scott Carstairs was 17 and still in high school when he wrote ''The Harvest Wombs'', as were Alex Hofmann and Andrew Baird.

Context Music / Fallujah