It is hard to imagine why UK magazine NME called Broken Records "one of the country's most exciting bands." Let's be generous and assume they meant Scotland and not the UK as a whole. Scotland, which has a population of a little over 5,000,000 people, has many more exciting bands making music similar, but better than, Broken Records.
Frightened Rabbits and The Twilight Sad are two bands that immediately come to mind. Frightened Rabbits' The Midnight Organ Fight and The Twilight Sad's Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters must be your first stops when perusing the Scottish indie rock scene of recent years.
Broken Records’ Until The Earth Begins To Part might be considered a "must-listen," only after you've got your recent Scottish classics out of the way. Many of the songs were written in 2007 but have gone unreleased until now, and while it is not completely unlistenable, it is nothing more than an inferior rehashing of other great music coming out of Scotland.
"Nearly Home" is a good opener to the record, and there is not much to criticize in the beautiful strings and searching screams that make this song grandiose. The following track and one of the best songs, "If The News Makes You Sad, Don't Watch It," is a middling four minutes long and is more indicative of the album as a whole.
The idea that Broken Records have been dubbed "the Scottish Arcade Fire" by NME is worth an eye-roll at least. Compared to vocalist Jamie Sutherland, Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbits simply does it better, and James Graham of The Twilight Sad's voice carries more devastating heartbreak.
"If Eilert Loevborg Wrote A Song It Would Sound Like This" is another one of the album's highlights. Sutherland's voice finally shows some weight and anger as he sings over a fairly awesome accordion riff. This is the direction the entire album should have taken because this is where Sutherland shines most.
"Wolves" is the band's take on Bob Dylan's "Masters of War,” and incorporates some ambition as sound builds to something quite beautiful in certain spots.
"I hate men basically," Sutherland said when explaining the song to The Pop Cop, a Scottish music blog. "Guys in suits. Can’t stand them. Most of the record is based around all the shit things men do."
Does it irk you how seriously this man takes himself and how regurgitated and laughable it can sound? Such is the tone of the entire record.
“We’re trying to do something different," Broken Records wrote in the album's press release. "People forget that music doesn’t have to be just bass, guitar and drums. It can be just as loud and exciting with glockenspiel and trumpet.”
Oh brother.
Instruments such as glockenspiels and trumpets are more popular today than they have been in some time. Arcade Fire, the immensely popular band that Broken Records are regularly compared to, have certainly shown this time and time again. Radiohead have been proving this point for over a decade as well.
Baroque pop, the genre that is precisely what Broken Records seem to be aiming for, is hugely loved and well populated. If it were 1989, their work might be a bit closer to "something different” than in the diverse musical culture of 2009.
"The world has changed slightly since then," Sutherland said to The Pop Cop, referring to “A Good Reason,” the album's loud and fun penultimate track. "Obviously, Bush isn’t there anymore, you’ve got people moving out of Iraq and everybody’s filled with hope. So it sounds slightly dated and it’s a weird one to still be singing."
The absence of a man like Peter Katis (Frightened Rabbit's producer who has also worked with The National, Interpol, Spoon and many other bands on critically acclaimed albums) may have been another blow to this record's chances.
Broken Records aimed for The Clash and came off as an imitation of their very talented Scottish contemporaries. Until The Earth Begins To Part is mediocre in a place, time, and genre brimming with incredible music. It isn’t terrible, and certainly has its share of fine songs proving potential, but this ought to be towards the bottom on your list of music priorities -- even if your entire list is Scottish indie rock.
-------------------------
Until The Earth Begins To Part is available on July 7 on 4AD.
Comments
Post new comment