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The Blood Brothers give lesson in post-modernism
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The high-pitched screaming is not something you are likely to
hear on any radio station. The gnawing guitar can eat at your soul
and leave you breathless. And, the rhythms probably could cause
motion sickness in the squeamish.
When I listened to the Blood Brothers’ new album, Burn
Piano Island, Burn, for the first time, I couldn’t come up
with any reason why I shouldn’t try it again. The second time
around might prove to enlighten me further.
Burn is the Blood Brothers’ third full-length album and
second attempt at outdoing themselves creatively, pushing genre
boundaries and musical skills into a less familiar territory, where
angular guitar lines mix with glass-shattering vocals in a way that
seems almost necessary.
On this album, unlike the previous two, they take more
opportunities to slow it down and add more diverse instruments such
as a xylophone, electric piano and an acoustic guitar.
The result is complex textures without compromising the sheer
energy of the music.
The sound gets almost atmospheric before exploding back into the
sharp, detrimental post-punk that only a few can learn to love.
The Blood Brothers formed in Seattle in 1997 as a five-piece
band including the usual bass, drums and guitar, but with two
singers, which set them apart from other punk and
post-punk/hardcore bands.
The resulting vocal possibilities are amazing, and well
illustrated on Burn.
Lyrically, these guys are poets. The imagery is utterly
fascinating and dark.
Their serenading screams tell of “bulimic rainbows,”
eating smiles off children and hearts “weaving jackets for
children who’ll never be born.”
These images flash by the listener as fast as music video
visuals, each line as thought provoking as it is colorful.
The Blood Brothers offer, to those who are willing to listen, a
study in post-modernism.
From the music to the lyrics to the cover art, we are thrust
into a world strangely familiar yet frightening, where excess is
the new moderation.
Justin Prescott, The Arbiter
