Brigade - 'Sink, Sink, Swim'
While I freely admit that is not really the best source of research for, well, anything, I generally make a habit of looking up any band I have to review on there before writing the review, just because sometimes there are some interesting fan-supplied titbits that provide an interesting jumping-off point. And sometimes there are just things in there that amuse me, like when I was doing my background check on Brigade and discovered that they perform in the genre of "post-hardcore". I didn't even know such a thing existed. Sounds brutal, though.
Anyway, my first encounter with Brigade was some years ago, when a friend of mine with obvious post-hardcore leanings - I now realise - put 'Meet Me At My Funeral' on a mixtape for me to have a listen to, and I remember being quite taken with it - though not, if I'm honest, quite taken enough to have followed them that closely since then.
'Sink, Sink, Swim', though, has done quite an impressive job of renewing my interest. The first thing that struck me about it was that it sounds like the sort of song that ought to be on the soundtrack to a Hollywood blockbuster - all heroic guitar chords, insistence and perpetual motion. Maybe it's just me, but I had the image of a camera swooping in and out of a New York skyscape in my head while I was listening to it.
It amounts to more than just pretty sonic wallpaper, though - there's quite a tender moment around the two-and-a-half minute mark which gives the song a bit more character, and Will Simpson's emotive vocals are deployed to impressive effect.
My only reservation, and it's a bit of an odd one, is that the whole thing just feels a little bit too clean, somehow. I think I would've enjoyed it more if there was a touch more rawness to it - while the general polish on the song is impressive and something to be admired, I couldn't help feeling that it distanced me from being able to fully engage with it. I never thought I'd be saying this, but: put a bit less work into it next time, maybe?
Download: Out now
CD Released: August 4th
(Steve Perkins)
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