Follow Me Dark is a four-piece Grass Valley/Nevada City based alternative rock/metal band, consisting of Stephen Kozak on vocals/guitar, Sean Batinic (guitar), bassist Elliot Grove and Jim Boots (drums).
Photo taken from the Facebook site of Follow Me Dark
Listening to their self-titled debut album, all I could think of was that although, they are labelled as alt rock/metal, there is more to their style than that. Much more, actually.
The very first track on the album is Stars Collide and I think this is my favorite of them all. The drums-guitar-vocals combo gives me some System Of A Down vibes right from beginning to end, with a little bit of Muse kind of feeling - at some point it sounds like I'm hearing the gutair part from Knights Of Cydonia.
"Red Liver" can give you this "Let's break something" kind of angry feeling while you're listening, at least it did that to me. I like it how the vocal tones change verse-by-verse, and then BANG, the whole thing explodes. In "Flight Risk" I'd like to highlight the vocals once again. They resemble that of Matt Bellamy's of Muse here and there, and I love it how they fuse into the sounds of the guitar. It just amazes me, really. "Entwined" is a little bit more calm than the previous ones to me, maybe even a bit darker, melancholic. The second longest song is "Ancient Ones" with it 8 minutes and 11 seconds (with "Alone, the closing track being over 9 miuntes long) and I'd say this must be my second favorite off of the album. Or first - it's a close tie between this and Stars Collide. I can't not mention the guitar work that was put into it - it's heavy, it's perfect. It feels like something very very dark is coming after you, and there's no escape. You're about to meet your demise. Track 7 "Solace" differes from the rest of the songs in that it is an only instrumental piece, starting off heavily (holy hell, those lovely guitar riffs once again!), with parts that make you want to stand up and dance, and a beautiful beautiful ending. "Father' is pretty nostalgic and you can hear some pain in the vocals, too. It's followed by "Temptress" which is almost like the continuation of the previous track, the beginning of it is for sure.
The album is pretty long - with some songs reaching almost 7-8 minutes - but while you are listening to it, you simply can't care about it because the intensity of each songs grabs you by the hands and takes you away. Therefore,1 hour feels like a short blink, and you're surprised when it ends, you want it to go on forever. All in all, Follow Me Dark is an excellent album, with different kinds of songs, and if you ask me, I'd definitely recommend you to listen to it. Many times. More precisely, once, and then you will want to listen to it again. And again. And again.I did so and I can tell they have gained a new fan (that would be me). Least but not last, don't forget to look up the band on socials, give them a like, follow them.