Taking The Hourglass - Lost For Words

Taking The Hourglass

Lost For Words
self-released; 2014

3.6 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

A couple of weeks I started listening to Lost For Words by Taking The Hourglass. As with all the records I review, I didn’t read anything about the band initially and just pressed play. When I did I was greeted with “We Wait.” The song starts with subtle percussive elements that soon get greeted by a lightly played acoustic guitar. The chord progression is pretty and reminded me of something I would see a young female musician playing at a coffee shop. I wasn’t surprised when I heard an equally as pretty female voice enter into the equation with additional orchestral accompaniment.

At this point I thought I knew how the rest of this was going to play out. Boy was I wrong. At about fifty seconds in a rolling snare enters at a speed and intensity I wasn’t expecting and the first thought in my head was “that guy needs to chill out.”  At the absolute climax the song changes to “Until The End,” which for about the twenty seconds or so rocks out much harder than you would expect. As “Until The End” progresses it chills out a bit letting the exceptional vocal work come through. 

According to the band Lost For Words  “is a balance between the lighter, folkier preferences of Rachel (lead singer) and the heavier, more rock influenced preferences of Ilseuk (rhythm guitarist and primary songwriter). It really is the most important aspect of the band and is ultimately what make them unique and original. 

Rachel has a great voice any way you look at it. You could easily replace her voice with any top 40 female vocal hit and the song would sound great. The guy Ilseuk has a decent voice too and while not on the caliber of Rachel’s it works especially well when they harmonize. “A Brand New Thought” reaches some epic heights and rocks out hard when they sing, “But now I ask/Do you have any more questions/You’ve been hurt, used/And manipulated.”

As much as they like to rock they don’t go to ten on every song. “Burdens Over Solitutde” is pretty even keel. That being said the closer “Battle” rocks out pretty hard.

Sometimes you don’t always get what you expect. In this case it was a nice surprise.

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