Album review: Planet Brain vs Lebatol – Split

The split record (be it a 7-inch, an EP or a short album, as in this case) is a great formula if you’re the sort of label whose target audience actually like to discover new music for themselves (rather than wait to be told by the NME what’s good), provided you can get two bands that are just similar (and different) enough for the contrasts to work. That’s a lot of parentheses (not that I care), but regardless, Function Records have picked a complementary pair with Planet Brain and Lebatol.

And five songs apiece seems a pretty good dose – enough for you to get the feel for a band’s range of textures, but not enough for you to tire too quickly. So, first of all – the similarities. Both Lebatol and Planet Brain are of the school of post-hardcore that is less about ludicrous haircuts and sponsored tours and more about angular riffs and intriguing chord sequences played with saturated yet glassy guitar tones, as if the band members listen to a lot of post-rock on the side. It’s engaging stuff, both bands delivering material that is somehow spare but densely packed at once.

Now to the contrast – which is plainly the vocal styles. It should be clear by now that Planet Brain aren’t the Hawkwind-esque space rock outfit that their name might suggest; indeed, they sound rather like a more thoughtful and less geekily madcap version of We Are Scientists, fronted by some guileless and charming chimaera of Jeff Buckley and Matt Bellamy. Voices with that effortlessly emotional style can go one of two ways, and it’s a pleasure to be able to report that Marcello Batelli avoids the Tar-pit of Cloying Sentiment by making a beeline for the Land of the Genuinely Expressive. He’s really rather good… and given that Planet Brain are from Italy, we can assume (using a kind of inverse racism) that he’s ridiculously handsome as well, and will break many a heart – male and female alike – when he next reaches this septic isle. Which he deserves to do; why Planet Brain aren’t already a big deal is quite beyond me.

Lebatol, meanwhile, have a kind of Idlewild-do-emo thing going on – and lest confusion arise, I say that as a confirmed and unashamed Idlewild fan. The singer (who is unnamed in the press release, incidentally, which indicates a rather charming modesty when you consider that they run the label themselves) keeps sounding like he’s about to venture into a scale that has no bearing on what the rest of the band are doing, but somehow it always seems to work, each bar somehow resolving into harmony from what looked like it was about to be some sort of tonal car-crash. There’s also a much rawer, gritty feel to Lebatol‘s style, more obviously rooted in the punk tradition (though still at a healthy and refreshing distance from it) with its loud-quiet-loud dynamics and sense of personal catharsis. Lebatol make music for journeys – though whether they’re physical or personal (or both) is probably best left to you, the listener, to decide for yourselves.

So, wise choices indeed for this split album – and while I think I personally prefer Planet Brain a little bit, Lebatol are also a band I’m pleased to have discovered. Both will be finding their way on to my mp3 player later today; why not invite them onto yours, too?