“Intro the Gravity” by Falling Up, Wednesday, November 29, 2023

On October 25, 2005, Falling Up released their sophomore record, Dawn Escapes. The album, produced by Michael “Elvis” Baskette, varies from the band’s Hybrid-Theory-inspired debut Crashings. Rather than maintaining the momentum of the synth-driven rock on Crashings, the band’s sophomore effort focuses on a dreamy ambiance enhanced with hard rock guitars. The first single from the album, “Exit Calypsan” (Only in My Dreams)--released earlier in 2005 on the Christian Rock compilation X2005-- is slower than the singles from Crashings. The chorus brings heavy guitars in to keep Falling Up a rock band. Dawn Escape’s second single, “Moonlit”; however, broke the band’s electronic formula and gave them a riff-heavy rocker. With the two singles preceding the album, listeners were treated to a dreamy experience that perfectly wrapped the dichotomous songs.

THIS PLACE I PASS. The album cover of Crashings showed a fresh-faced six-peace band. According to their cover artwork, Falling Up looked like a clean-cut Linkin Park boyband in a distinctly 2000s Matrix Reloaded-colored filter. Six young men in a band was quite a lot for any group after the ska era in the late ‘90s. The band had signed with BEC Recordings under the recommendation of their high school friends in the band Kutless, a band that had been the biggest act of the early ‘00s before Underoath and Anberlin.  The band’s sophomore record, Dawn Escapes, did not feature photos of the band on the front, but rather the picture of an old Victorian-style house, similar to the one in the “Escalates” video in a flood. In the album booklet, the house is later almost completely submerged.  The six members of Falling Up appear on the back of the album. After Dawn Escapes, little by little, the high school friends in Falling Up started falling away from the band. Only lead singer Jessy Ribordy, bassist Jeremy Miller, and drummer Josh Shroy stayed in the band throughout their duration until Falling Up broke up in 2016.

YOUR WORLD IS CRASHING TO THE GROUND. When I listened to Dawn Escapes in my later high school years it was mostly the first six tracks and the final track, 

“Intro the Gravity.” After “Moonlit,” the album seemed to lose momentum. “Intro the Gravity” was never a single from Dawn Escapes. The song wasn’t chosen for their remix album Exit Lights which featured remixes from the band’s first two albums with more tracks coming from their sophomore record. Yet, the song ends the album perfectly. All songs from Falling Up’s first two records were accompanied by a Bible verse, printed in the album booklet. When I was in high school and when a band’s spirituality gave them points toward being my favorite band, I looked up the verses for some of the songs. I never felt that Falling Up’s inclusion of scripture was particularly important to understanding the song and often made the song more confusing. But cryptic lyrics were Falling Up’s bread and butter. “Intro the Gravity” is based on 1 Corinthians 3:19, according to the album booklet. The verse states: “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” If the verse provides context, the speaker of the song is arguing that the subject is foolish for “wanting everything.” Furthermore, the subject is alone when that person’s “world. . . crash[es] to the ground.” The sentence: “This is oceans” possibly relates to the drowning theme of the album from the cover art and the song “Fearless.” The water is a powerful force that can drown or baptize. It can kill or cure.

 

Read “Into The Gravity” by Falling Up on Genius.