Edinburgh's multi-instrumentalists, Broken Records, embody a more cultured side of Scotland. Discarding social errors such as copious alcohol consumption, knife crime and job seekers, this cultivated gang of eclectic educators clatter poetically like an eastern block Arcade Fire.
Balkan toe-tapping jig 'If The News Makes You Sad...' becomes an early competitor for the album's highlight, a shame really, because the influences and inventive inclinations of this record are there, they're just delivered in such a sombre manor that it the album's low points begin to drag a little.
It's easy to see how songs such as 'If Eilert Loevbord...' and 'If The News...' could come across as rather electrifying, zestful live songs. They reek enthusiasm and you can envisage the troupe hop-scotching over the stage like excitable offspring bred on a diet of folk music and gloomy novels predicting the earths perils. 'Wolves', further more, is a successful piano twinkle that comes across as a lot more natural than other songs on the album. The influences are seriously obvious during parts of this debut and can come across a little too abruptly at times, but on 'Wolves' it's less encroaching and a little more...well, Broken Records.
'Slow Parade' isn't quite the album closer you'd expect. After admiring the hectic, hair-raising high-points of the album's finer, more magnificent moments, you would expect something a little more epic. Where Sutherland's voice is heart-wrenchingly accurate it just seems like the hysterical musical thrill expected by various fiddles, horns and guitars is a bit too absent.
I'm not disappointed, not by a long shot. It's got its operatic, eruptive moments that bellow like the Broken Records we expected, but when it gets too delicate it gets too dull. They've got more to give, and more is what we want.
No comments:
Post a Comment