With the Spokane, Washington "Mayfield 4's" debut album, "Fallout," they fall into the trap that a lot of bands do on their debut album. There is some really good material on the album, but the album is not consistent. There is definite potential here, but potential alone does not a great album make.

The album itself features a guitar-heavy alterna-rock sound. Due to their
location (and the fact that lead singer Myles Kennedy can sound like
Soundgarden's Chris Cornell at times) their music will probably be unfairly compared to bands displaying the "Seattle Sound."

The album opens, in fact, with a song called "Shuddershell" that people
might easily mistake for a Soundgarden song, both in mood and in vocal style. Kennedy demonstrates his vocal range, which is quite impressive, on this song. The second song, "Suckerpunch," is one of the stronger tracks on the album, featuring competent guitar work, and a very catchy melody.

The third song, "Forfeit," has a soft, lyrical sadness to it. This is another of the album's stronger tracks, and as the title suggests, it is basically about just giving up. In fact, the album as a whole, according to Kennedy, is a form of therapy as his lyrics offer up his personal stories of broken relationships and self-doubt.

The song "Always" features bouncy guitar and bass, and pre-chorus lyrics that are almost spoken instead of sung. This is followed by "No One Nothing" which has a similar beat to "Always" - at least as far as the instrumentation goes. For the main sections, the instruments feature the same pulsing sound as "Always," just at a little slower pace.

The song "12/31" features soft vocals and a dark, moody sound. The
instrumentation is sparse, and serves as much as a backdrop for the vocals as it does for stand-alone sound. This is one of the songs that I felt had more potential, but too much effort was wasted in setting the mood, and the song itself got lost in the shuffle.

This is followed by the angry diatribe of the title track, "Fallout," and
the smooth-rocking "Big Verb," which opens with rather soft, melodic guitar work before picking up the pace with a blast of sound. The energy and vitality of "Realign" leads into the wistful "Don't Walk Away."

The album closes with the lenghty track "Overflow," clocking in at almost
seven minutes, and a cover of the Marvin Gaye song, "Inner City Blues."
"Overflow" is a rambling rocker that, more than any other song in here, gives the band members a chance to show off their respective talents. "Inner City Blues" is a good cover of the Marvin Gaye song that makes no pretenses of being better than the original.

Overall, this is a good album. There were weak moments, but this is
generally to be expected of debut artists. Sometimes, it seems to me, that
bands attempt to put out a 12 or so track album on the strength of a 7 or
8 track demo tape they've sold, so the quality of writing on the last few
songs isn't up to par with the quality of writing on the songs from the demo
tape. However, I do think this album has it's enjoyable moments, and it is
worth more than just a casual listen.