Young Brit-rockers Brigade take a second swing at the scene with their new album Come Morning We Fight, taking on the American hegemony of shallow rock at its own game by trying to subvert the form with a bit of integrity.
It’s a good effort. I can’t say entirely how well Brigade achieve their aims, because I don’t have access to the whole thing – can’t trust us nasty hacks not to squirt the whole thing onto the intarwebs, you see – but the six tunes from Come Morning We Fight show off the two sides of their coin quite well.
If you want to look for something to complain about, it’s that exact same musical two-facedness, and Brigade are far from having a monopoly on that particular phenomenon. Nowadays a successful new rock act needs to have a handful of accessible radio-friendly tunes as well as some strong loud belters to keep the live crowds happy. The ultimate happy medium is a band who can make the two approaches sound coherent – Brigade aren’t quite there yet, but they’re a lot further along than some.
“Pilot”, the leading single released a few weeks back, is the obvious bid for airplay – with slightly overwrought emo vocal stylings juxtaposed against a simple Feeder-esque descending chord progression, complete with gratuitous (but curiously effective) lashings of flange effects and a classic key-change bridge; it’s nice enough, but this is Brigade at their most forgettable, as is the vanilla angst of “Together Apart”.
“What Are You Waiting For” is the ballsy flip-side of that sound; Stone Age riffing and a raised pace brings a sense of urgency and (dare I say it) danger to the proceedings; that and “Asinine” are probably the best of the tunes on Come Morning We Fight, at least of the ones that I’ve heard.
But there are hints of what Brigade could be if they achieve a synthesis of their two sides - “Stunning” lives up to its name, with a bright and simple tune and a good strong vocal hook. It’s proof positive that there’s still plenty of mileage in pop-powered rock, but that it’s an elusive beast at the best of times.
Come Morning We Fight isn’t destined to rewrite the history of rock, but it threatens to push a homegrown British band into the limelight hogged by novelty haircuts from over the ocean. You never know your luck – Brigade might just storm the fort.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: Brigade, Come Morning We Fight, emo, pop, rock
