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When All Else Fails Bracket |
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I went from listening to Berlin Live to this, and you can't imagine how fast your mood can change. I'm about ready to tear up everything within arms reach! That's right "When All Else Fails" break things! Not that we're necessarily talking about angry music or lyrics to brawl over, just the way they play. Well not quite something you'd write around a keyboard and dance beats! "Daddy's Girl" starts off pretty-well going by the lyrics, pretty it is not. "Her shit stained smile is out of style." No I wouldn't imagine there'd be any winning here fellers! What's this now, three years in the making for this one? Bracket's decisively punk in their delivery, just a little less so than your average band of bottle breaking, ground stomping lunatics firing off one shell after another at a sweaty group of angry faced teen pit crashers. The album cover's great-yes in this case a picture's worth maybe a thousand and one words! Some guy face down drunk at the bar-okay, so now it becomes clear. when all else fails, the bottle becomes your best friend! I love it. do they have any shirts available? "No Brainer" and "Spazz" are a well placed jab to the gut, the latter having to do with something tragic about the daylight hours and how the night just makes it all the more better! The further we go here the more I'm thinking this is more along the lines of real rock and roll-less fodder, seriously written, maybe a little overdone production-wise. So what happened? Now I'm really mad-all right, now I need a fucking drink! "When All Else Fails" is told primarily in the first person perspective exploring every conceivable relationship between singer and the world at large. This is kinda like a cross between The Clash and Elvis Costello. scary to think about but for Bracket, it just works. Maybe a little too subtle for the hard-core devotees to cling to, and probably not enough spit and polish for alternative pop-friendly radio. But "When All Else Fails" faces the world on its own terms and I like that. Now what happens when this guy on the cover wakes up, that might be something else entirely. Released by Fat Wreck Chords Review by Vinnie Apicella |
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"Live In A Dive" Bracket |
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Those multi-talented guys from Bracket, out to save the world from processed Punk prototypes, trot out five albums and two comps worth of weighty anthems on their first live piece, seventeen songs worth of driving Rock that'll crash right through your living room you'll swear you were so close. The second "Live" installment from the hearty folks at Fat again features an accompanying comic, written by and starring the band themselves in an admirable portrayal of halitosis and heroism and precursory PG video scenes. There's a certain quality of flexibility for the many bands that comprise the Fat roster, they being first and foremost the natural ability of a song to take you a stretch further than yer typically three second chord strike and scream. Next you'd have to start looking at the haircuts and dangling shirt sleeves and so forth but what's it matter? So rearin' their trademark melody and easy breezy bluesy riffs, Bracket's catchy racket's allowed them to log enough mileage to know where their strengths are and "Live In A Dive" captures that essence, though it does get surprisingly quiet at certain between song intervals. Good, clean, 24-track state of the art family fun for aspiring choir singers and class clowns of all ages. Released by Fat Wreck Chords Website: http://www.fatwreck.com Review by Vinnie Apicella [va85@columbia.edu] P.O. Box 20252 |