Engineers
Three Fact Fader
Release Date: Oct 13, 2009
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Kscope
Music Critic Score
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Album Review: Three Fact Fader by Engineers
Great, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Having broken through to the periphery of mainstream success thanks to the tried and tested 'word of mouth' method - not to mention a series of storming live shows - 2005's self-titled debut release should have been the catalyst for greater things as far as Engineers were concerned. Sadly, and as so often has been the case in recent times, record company politics (the label, Echo, eventually going bust) and the perceived changing tastes of their customer demographics meant that the band and any subsequent releases found themselves on an enforced hiatus lasting four years. For many lesser outfits, that would have been the straw that broke the camel's back; the precursor to collectively announce "enough is enough" and head back to the drawing board to re-evaluate and map out new careers.
Based on rating 4/5
Click here to get your copy of Engineers’ ‘Three Fact Fader’ from the Rough Trade store.
Based on rating 8/10
Hearing an album that doesn’t quite sound like anything you’ve heard before is always fun, if a bit illusory. There’s so much music out there and so little time to hear it all, and so for a band to give you something “new” is often as much a product of luck and your own listening habits as their inventiveness. Engineers’ 2005 debut managed to sound novel merely by combining two sounds I loved in a way I’d never heard before, and if you want to hear what Teenage Fanclub sounds like as a classic shoegaze band, I highly recommend it.
Based on rating 7/10
Sometimes bands with the most promising beginnings can sputter out and fade away before they ever get the chance to follow through, and that was almost what happened to Engineers. The British neo-shoegaze outfit released its self-titled debut album in 2005, amassing major critical plaudits and kicking off what looked to be an upward-bound career. By 2008, Engineers' admirers starting looking questioningly at their calendars, and messages posted by the band online told a story of music-biz mishaps that wound up putting the follow-up album in limbo and the band on temporary hiatus, with the members going so far as to pursue other projects in the interim.
Opinion: Excellent
It’s safe to say that the United Kingdom has generated its share of influential, unique and superb artists over the last fifty years. It has essentially led the advancement of popular music since the beginning of the sixties, and great artists are still crossing the Atlantic to reach American audiences. With their second LP, Three Fact Fader, Engineers fit on the list.