First To Leave, Forging A Future

Some people just have good yelling voices. Trust me, I know this; I went to military school. And Matt Foster, the frontman for Bay Area band First To Leave, has got the right pipes for scream-singing.

On their second album, Forging a Future, First To Leave sounds like what I would call melodic-hardcore, or post-hardcore, or pop punk — or some combo of all that. It’s a slightly distorted, guitar-driven sound, with that essential quick-paced drum work, but it stays away from the hardcore warp speed where you can’t understand a single word. To me the sound is comparable to Lifetime and Saves the Day. The guitars have plenty of hooks and riffs, and the bass has nice runs which really shine through during the breakdowns of the song. Top songs on the CD for me were “Drag the Lake,” “Two Guns, One Mile,” and “Revival (Starts And Ends).” Favorite lyrics: “What she said was, ‘I’ll leave the door open’ / But what she meant was, ‘I’ll never let you in.'”

Although the music doesn’t differ too much from song to song, at least it has nice changes within the songs to keep things from going stale. So, like most of punk rock, for me it boils down to lyrics, song ideas, and delivery. And Matt Foster definitely delivers on that. He has the volume and his own style, his lyrical ideas are good, and the lines are crafted in an unusual way.

The one complaint I do have is that there are too many losing-the-girl songs. I’d have like to have heard some more songs dealing with some other subjects (there’s a whole crappy world out there that could use some screaming at). Maybe that will come on later albums. Reading in the liner notes, however, it looks like First To Leave has changed out its whole lineup except for frontman Foster since the recording of the CD. So, it seems the future is still unsettled for First to Leave.