The Falls don’t use their second EP simply to repeat what has already earned them attention. Would You Do It All Over Again? captures a band becoming bigger, bolder and more emotionally assured without sacrificing the urgency that made their earliest material connect.
Since their emergence in 2023 the Manchester 4-piece have racked up a mightily impressive 162k Spotify streams, headlining Manchester Academy and selling out their November headline at Gullivers in under 24 as part of their UK tour.
The Manchester four-piece’s second EP is the moment promise becomes proof. Across five tracks, The Falls move from youthful escapism and festival-sized euphoria into darker confrontations with pressure, consequence and the terrifying speed at which life passes. It is ambitious without becoming overworked, emotionally honest without surrendering the immediacy that first made people pay attention.
Released via Revo Pro and produced, mixed and mastered by Luke Owens, Would You Do It All Over Again? captures the sweat, electricity and rough-edged excitement of the band’s live performances while pushing their songwriting into more expansive territory. This isn’t The Falls attempting to become something different—it is the sound of them becoming impossible to ignore.
Open Fire
There is no gentle introduction. Open Fire immediately throws The Falls into the line of fire, its urgent drums, driving bass and serrated guitar work creating the sense that everything could collapse at any moment.
Harrison Sharp’s vocal carries the frustration of someone being hit from every direction, while the band translate that pressure into something exhilaratingly physical. The verses tighten the tension before the chorus delivers the release: immediate, forceful and made to be shouted back from the front row.
Completed in under three minutes, it is The Falls at their most direct. There is no wasted movement or unnecessary decoration—just melody, grit and the sound of a band refusing to retreat when the pressure begins to mount.
The Other Side
If Open Fire arrives beneath darkening skies, The Other Side steps decisively into the sunshine.
One of the first songs The Falls wrote together, it has been rebuilt to represent the band they are today. Shimmering guitar lines and a buoyant rhythm give the track an effortless summer glow, while Sharp’s vocal brings a youthful optimism to its instantly memorable chorus.
Yet beneath that brightness lies a more complicated truth. Inspired by the idea that the grass is not always greener elsewhere, the song captures the disappointment of reaching something you have idealised, only to discover that reality cannot match the version created inside your head.
That tension between sound and subject gives The Other Side its staying power. It feels euphoric enough to fill a festival field, but its optimism is tempered by experience. The Falls may still be chasing the dream, but they are no longer pretending that arriving will solve everything.
Loaded Gun
Positioned at the centre of the EP, Loaded Gun is where the atmosphere changes completely.
The guitars become heavier, the rhythm section more threatening and the melodies increasingly claustrophobic. Rather than racing towards its chorus, the track stalks its way there, allowing the tension to accumulate before the entire band crashes through with controlled ferocity.
Inspired by a scene from Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, the loaded gun becomes a metaphor for inevitability—the fear that your mistakes will eventually catch up with you, regardless of how quickly or how far you run.
Sharp delivers one of his most commanding vocal performances, moving between frustration, defiance and reluctant acceptance as the guitars circle around him. Owens’ production gives each instrument room to strike while preserving the abrasive edges that make the song feel dangerous.
Harrison Sharp
“This EP is us releasing our next chapter. Our
first EP was us finding our feet, this chapter has been about us stamping down on who we are.
Every song is a page out of Manchester, out of the sweat and the stages we cut our teeth on. We’re
not trying to relive someone else’s experience, we’re just rewriting it in our own way lyric by lyric,
song by song, and experience by experience. It’s reminiscent of where we started, but it reminds you
exactly where we’re headed, relentless is the only word for it, really. Would we do it all over again?
Absolutely and 100 times after. Hopefully this is just the beginning.
Bigger, darker and more confrontational than anything surrounding it, Loaded Gun is the EP’s decisive turning point. The carefree escape has ended; now the consequences are kicking down the door.
City Lights
After the volatility of Loaded Gun, City Lights allows The Falls to stretch out and reveal a more reflective side.
The longest track on the EP is also its most expansive. Guitars shimmer and gradually gather weight around Sharp’s emotionally charged vocal, creating something that feels less like a conventional indie single and more like a widescreen night-time anthem.
There is real patience in the arrangement. The band resist the temptation to reveal everything immediately, letting the song breathe before pushing towards its soaring final passages. A more spacious section briefly pulls the track back, making the eventual surge feel even more cathartic.
Lyrically, City Lights is about releasing whatever has been preventing you from moving forward. That sense of liberation runs through the music: what begins with uncertainty slowly opens into acceptance, with the illuminated skyline offering the promise of another life waiting beyond the darkness.
It is an ambitious step beyond the band’s punchier material and evidence of a group beginning to understand the power of restraint. The Falls can ignite a room within seconds, but City Lights proves they can also hold an audience through atmosphere, emotion and gradual escalation.
Blink
The EP closes with its fastest and most immediately addictive moment.
Blink propels itself forward on energetic drums, bright guitar hooks and a particularly impressive bassline. Ren Smith’s bass doesn’t simply sit underneath the track; it races through it, adding a bouncing, melodic pulse that gives the song much of its restless momentum. It is especially effective during the verses, where its movement provides a powerful counterpoint to the guitars before everything converges in the instantly memorable chorus.
That relentless pace serves a deeper purpose: this is a song about time disappearing while you are still trying to make sense of it. Inspired by the phrase “blink and you’ll miss it”, the track captures both the excitement and impermanence of youth.
Sharp sounds caught between wanting to seize every opportunity and fearing that the most important moments may already be slipping away. Meanwhile, the combination of racing bass, energetic drums and soaring guitars makes it feel as though the song itself is trying to outrun the passing of time.
As a closing track, Blink is a clever contradiction. Musically, it sends the EP out on a rush of optimism; emotionally, it leaves behind a lingering reminder that nothing—success, youth or the moment itself—lasts forever.
Across five tracks, The Falls turn pressure, mistakes, ambition and the passing of time into something explosive. Would You Do It All Over Again? begins with a band caught beneath the crossfire and ends with them racing towards the future, fully aware that one blink could be enough to miss everything.
The title may look backwards, but this is a record powered by forward motion. Bigger in sound, sharper in its storytelling and fearless in its ambition, it captures The Falls at the precise moment when potential becomes undeniable.
Manchester has produced countless bands with dreams of filling bigger rooms. On Would You Do It All Over Again?, The Falls sound ready to tear the doors from their hinges.
This isn’t merely the next chapter in The Falls’ story—it is the moment the rest of the country starts paying attention.
Would You Do It All Over Again is released on Friday 18th September
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