The album opens with ‘wild fire/flowers’, a track which sounds like a cross between Yowler and Moutain Man, the opening a wild hymnal (“let is spread like wild fire / let it grow like wild flowers / everything we know comes from water”) before the introduction of electric guitar and a hazy ambient background. The song is a good introduction to Trust Fall’s aesthetic, the gentle bedroom folk littered with small moments that threaten to be less gentle, the lyrics wrapped in imagery of the natural world, reassuring and timeless yet also volatile, too large to control.

“I had a life
before I was born
in the water”

‘Monsters Aren’t Scary’ is a delicate song buried beneath reverb, the low grumble representing the titular monsters, while ‘Winter Walking’ is a short track in the vein of free cake for every creature or Cyberbully Mom Club, full of small, sincere details that read like an internal practise of a conversation that will never take place (“Winter walking by the ocean / this is a good rock to sit down on / you are a good friend to sit next to”). ‘Boundlessness’ has a similar feel, although a dark cloud has passed over the narrator, the easy joy of the previous track replaced by uncertainty and unease.

“When did we invite the storm in our home?
And I envy the way you seem to know the way.
I’ll try not to rely on your ghost”

‘In yr truck’ opens sad and lonely, like Girlpool played at half-speed in an empty field, before building into a frenzy, the guitars accelerating and the vocals becoming almost unhinged. ‘Maria’ is slow and melancholic, occupying a flat space of acceptance where the things you love have slipped away. “Everything will change,” she sings. “I must remember that,” as if trying to convince herself such heartache is natural. It becomes clear that the song details a dissolving relationship, the dissipation of love through the slow erosion of time and space.

“What do I do now? What do I say to you
in the kitchen, when you ask what I’ve been up to?
It’s not that you asked, it’s that you had to ask
It’s that you didn’t know that makes me so sad.
I miss you.”

The album closes with a cover of Keith Whitley’s ‘I’m No Stranger to the Rain’, which comes off as a triumphant finale, a moment of strength or assurance in the gloom, as if there’s a certain pleasure in passing through sadness and appearing intact on the other side. “But I’ll put this cloud behind me,” she sings. “That’s how the Man designed me / To ride the wind and dance in a hurricane / I’m no stranger to the rain”. It seems, perhaps ironically, that admitting to your metaphorical wet climate might just help you notice the sky brightening once in a while.

You can grab boundless and unafraid now from the Trust Fall Bandcamp page on a pay-what-you-can basis, and on cassette from Reflective Tapes.

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The EP is dreamy and hushed and serves to palliate the stresses and worries of modern life with “a distinct desire for understanding and compassion”. If you’re a fan of meditative, experimental, music then I highly recommend having a listen.

You can buy the EP right now over at Patient Sounds.

And one last thing.  I encourage you to familiarise yourself with the rest of the Patient Sounds catalogue. An independent label based in Fort Collins, Colorado, they release music on cassette tapes (like the Earthbound one below) which come in these beautifully designed cases and just look generally amazing. The music itself isn’t bad either! I am yet to explore fully but on early listens I would suggest checking out A Spirit by Pines, Motivated/Unmotivated by Kites Sail High and The Westers by Wellington Downs.

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