We spend our lives waiting for something to blow our minds. We survive the drone of everyday life thanks to the promise of the extraordinary, the clung-to belief that within the framework of our mundane existences there will be a few things so striking and so monumental they will alter our entire mindset of what is possible. In music, specifically, we weed through the generic, the repetitive, the synthetic, in search of sonic experiences that smash into us like a ton of bricks, leaving us with nothing but awe when we finally catch our breath. That is what Mukilteo, WA band The Fall of Troy’s staggering new record, Manipulator, does - shatters expectations and assures that even in this time where the dying music scene is filled with rehashed guitar riffs and stolen vocal melodies, originality is still possible. Written in 2006 during what singer/guitarist Thomas Erak calls a “really dark time” in his life, Manipulator, the follow-up to 2005’s Doppelganger, discards everything you think you know about The Fall of Troy. Eschewing the inevitable conventions of genre or scene, the record is constantly in motion, taking its listener to a brutal place where lying and cheating are the norm, and where despite its dark but staunchly realistic take on human nature there is a palpable sense of hope and catharsis. Erak’s signature fast-picked guitar work flies around bassist Tim Ward’s dynamic low-end, and drummer Andrew Forsman’s heavily throbbing beats, driving the disc to explore newly discovered heights and depths in the band’s sonic landscape with evident fervor. “We wanted to expand upon our band in every direction musically and attitude-wise,” Erak says of the group’s goals for the album. “To push the envelope even further than what we’ve done before. We’ve figured out what we want to sound like and it’s a million different things. We wanted to go in different directions and see where we could take it. I think we went above and beyond that.” The Fall of Troy entered the studio with Matt Bayles (Botch, Mastodon, Isis) in December 2006, where the producer helped to cull the trio’s current struggles and discontents into 12 ear-bending tracks that blatantly ignore typical song structure, instead propelling themselves in the exact opposite direction that one expects. The best parts of Doppelganger are there - the pounding drums, the insane guitar work, the juxtaposition between melodic mellifluousness and violent aggression - but Manipulator evolves the band’s sound several levels ahead, achieving the near impossibility of making cacophony and chaos seem beautiful. “We’re a band that’s always pushed our own boundaries and everybody expectations of us,” Erak says. “You’re always going to get something that you don’t expect with a Fall of Troy record. That’s what our angle is. We want to destroy everyone’s vision of what our band is in order to be able to do what we want, but not define ourselves so we can stay progressive and stay new.” Indeed there is no corralling this group of three boys who wrote and recorded their self-titled debut before they could legally vote and were signed to Equal Vision before they could legally drink, and there is certainly no containing the frenetic energy and raw sense of realism they pour into their music. The Fall of Troy is everything you wish bands would be- genuine, real and passionate- and Manipulator is everything you wish a record would be - unconventional, innovative and instilled with the lasting impression of amazement. While on tour with Coheed and Cambria in fall of 2007, original bassist Tim Ward decided that his time in The Fall of Troy had run its course. Leaving mid-tour, Erak and Forsman enlisted long time friend, Frank Black, to fill the vacancy. Not ones to miss a beat, Black jumped right in and the band finished out the tour with much acclaim. “We’re not going to conform,” Erak concludes. “We’re going to play whatever kind of music we want and we don’t care what anybody says about it. I want people to take this record and I want them to manipulate it to what they think it is and make it their own.”