No.8 Broken Records – Until The Earth Begins To Part

If you could imagine for a second that Arcade Fire were fronted by Bruce Springsteen, you may get somewhere near the awe-inspiring racket that Broken Records make.

For this comparison to truly work however, The Boss would had to have grown up under the grey skies of Edinburgh, but you get the idea. It’s a point worth nothing for it is Jamie Sutherland’s powerful Scottish drawl that makes Until The Earth Begins To Part such a triumph.

Musically, many bands can conjure up the fury that Broken Records specialise in – their use of instrumentation is a love letter to that aforementioned Canadian band – but the number of groups whose singer clearly lives and breaths every beat, every nuance, every pause and every scream, is far, far smaller.

In less able hands, the title track could have dissolved into mid-tempo balladry, but through sheer force and emotion Broken Records turn in a gobsmackingly beautiful three and a half minutes of pure melody.

Slow Parade is everything a closing track should be – a sprawling, over-the-top ballad that conjures apocalyptic imagery as Sutherland croons “the sun could die, the moon could fall, the stars could rip apart, it doesn’t matter now.” Very rarely does misery sound so thrilling.

Until The Earth Begins To Part (Clip)

Slow Parade (Clip)

Camera Obscura – French Navy

Haven’t heard these guys before, but it’s kinda grown on me. I like the drums and the string sections, and the vocalists vocals are good. Good, good, good, here I go again. It’s all good. Pretty cool song, I might have to try some more of their stuff. The chorus is particularly faster and catchier.

Broken Records – Until The Earth Begins To Part

Starts as a slow piano… song. Chords and stuff. Soft horns in the background. The vocals are flexible, and this song is really mellow and cool. When the extra horns/violins/whatever come in and the soft guitar/string-thing comes in, it sounds pretty good too. Relaxing track.

Download them here, NAO. But it’s worth mentioning you have to remove the </br> tag from the Camera Obscura link, otherwise it won’t work. Someone made a little mistake with the coding. Enjoy.

First impressions (and first impressions are what NAF is all about after all): This is a big sound, but then it is a seven piece band. In a manner reminiscent of last week’s NAF band, Grizzly Bear, the strings, brass and piano are used here to sculpt dynamics on an epic scale. There are soaring walls of sound and there are moments of beautiful intimacy too.  Not a band for hooky, catchy songs, rather (and again reminiscent of Grizzly Bear, and also The Decemberists) this is an album intended to be heard as an album. Everything from the concretised typography of the tracklisting to eschewing of intra-track gaps tells you this is constructed musical entity. And it’s a gorgeous, richly textured one.

I hope to catch them live soon, but until then, as an added bonus, I have a free live CD recorded at a session in Avalanche Records to mark Record Store Day.

Yay for proper record stores, and the bands that frequent them!