New Music Tuesday
Ok folks there’s a lot to cover before the review today. The first is that apparently I’m an idiot. Today marks the 3 month point since I began this silly venture. And while that in and of itself isn’t anything special, the fact that when I write a review I STILL need to look at my previous posts so I can keep the format fairly consistent kind of makes me question my intelligence. Well, I guess if anything it means I don’t form habits easily. But, however you look at it, I spent the past 12 weeks doing something and I can’t remember how to do it. Moving on. Being right is awesome, isn’t it? When you’re watching a movie, and maybe it’s an old movie or an obscure movie or something like that, and you happen to take note of an extra. Wait, that extra, his face, it’s so familiar. So you tell your buddies and they rewind it and pause so everyone in the room can get a look at his face. You all agree, you know that face. And then suddenly it hits you. It’s mother fucking Gary Busey. That feeling is awesome. It’s better than sex. Any idiot can have sex. It takes a special kind of person to find Gary Busey in a crowd of muddy Englishmen. What does that have to do with today’s review? Let’s find out.
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Son by Little Brazil
So I wanted this New Music Tuesday to feature a band not necessarily in the mainstream. In fact, I wanted to showcase somebody who I haven’t even heard of myself until I listened with the intentions of reviewing for all of you fine people. Enter Little Brazil. Little Brazil’s album Son was released March 24th, and I figured let’s give it a shot. So I got it, listened to it, and started the rigorous process by which I formulate my exceptionally astute opinions of the albums I review (basically me, my laptop, and some BBQ Fritos). Now before I get into the meaty meat of the music, I’d like to explain to you why I was talking about that sonofabitch Gary Busey*. While I was listening to LB, I had this nagging feeling deep inside of me. It was the weirdest thing, like a small stick being repeatedly prodded into the back of my skull (those of you with significant others know what I mean). I felt as if I was listening to Cursive, but a little more pop-ish, with a little bit of Rilo Kiley (another band I love) thrown in. And it was bothering me to know end. So, I decided to hop on wikipedia (a great site, but I try and avoid using it for these reviews as much as possible, because if I’m just copying from there, you might as well go there, so I try and just put shit that I know here) and see what I could find out about this band Little Brazil. AS IT TURNS OUT, Landon Hedges, the lead singer/songwriter, is a native of good ole Omaha, Nebraska, and a longtime friend of both Cursive’s Tim Kasher and Bright Eyes’ Connor Oberst. As a matter of fact, Landon spent time in bands with both gentlemen, The Good Life and Desaparecidos, respectively. So that solved mystery #1. As for #2 (hehe, poop), Little Brazil’s latest effort, today’s album Son, was recorded in Omaha’s ARC studios under Mike Mogis, responsible for Rilo Kiley’s More Adventurous. Mystery solved. Before moving on, I want to say that these two comparisons I just made and explored and killed myself over are by no means bad things, obviously because Cursive and Rilo Kiley are both bands I like. However, just because Little Brazil has similarities to the sounds of these two bands doesn’t mean you’re getting some sort of shit-clone.
Those of you who are fans of the Omaha scene (Cursive, Bright Eyes, The Good Life, Desaparecidos, Tilly and the Wall, The Faint, and recently Rilo Kiley) will be able to pick up its influence on Little Brazil almost immediately. After all, Landon Hedges has been a fairly major player in the scene for a while, and he carries on his legacy well with Little Brazil, his latest project. It’s a unique sound hard to describe in a way other than a Saddle Creek sound. Son has found a balance between clean, folk-sounding guitar lines and more driving, distorted riffs. It’s basically a concept album, I say basically because the album follows a central story but for some reason I’m not comfortable calling it a full-fledged concept album. The story begins by recounting how a man and his wife met, fell in love, and were married. From there it follows their life through the birth of their children and then a divorce. Hedges learned his songwriting from one of the masters of the craft: Tim Kasher. I’m not discrediting Hedges in any way here, just merely pointing out that he is capable of a songwriting style reminisce of Kasher that not everybody can pull off. The lyrics are equal parts specific to the plot and more generally applicable. What I’m trying to say is that the songs aren’t suffering because he’s trying to force plot into them, the lyrics all fulfill the role of being lyrics first, and the story comes second. Because of that, the push through the plot feels natural rather than uncomfortable. There are a few songs on this album that are really worth noting. The opening track, Brighton Beach, is fucking awesome. It opens with some chords on an organ, then the guitars come in, one clean and the other nice and clangy like either an acoustic or an acoustic simulator, and it builds from there until after the first verse, when we get a nice tempo change. Track 5, Nicholas, is also up there. It shows the amount of pressure the fragile relationship the album is about is exerting on the eponymous son. The song is very well structured, and musically does a fantastic job of reflecting the emotions contained within the young boy. But the song which sold the album for me and has since remained my favorite is track 8, Seperated (I know that’s spelled wrong, but that’s how it is on the album so shut up and keep reading). The song puts a surprisingly upbeat spin on the subject matter; namely, the separation between man and wife, and the hardships the husband must endure. This approach is a surprisingly thoughtful one (for any band), really showing Hedges to posses a high degree of maturity in his songwriting. Damn, the song is so happy I want to get married just so I can divorce the bitch and sing along to this song and really REALLY get into it. Not really. I don’t make enough money to pay child support.
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There you have it, Son by Little Brazil. I’m going to go ahead and say I have no experience with the first two releases by LB, but that I have every intention of picking them up ASAP. I’ve listened to The Good Life and Desaparecidos (fuck, I think I spelled that differently each time I mentioned them, damn you Connor Oberst), and both bands are of the high caliber you can expect from the Omaha scene. Just again to note the last song I mentioned, Seperated. I think this song really provides a good insight to what we can expect from Little Brazil’s future. While the whole album is good, it comes off as a little “safe” to quote my friend Bryan. Basically, they know the sound they want, and they’re working within that niche. There’s nothing wrong with capitalizing on your strengths, but I personally, and hopefully a lot of you, my readers, enjoy the challenge of listening to something that shows growth and experimentation. Basically, development is a great thing. Seperated plays around a lot with instrumentation, throwing in piano and a sax, and with warping the sound of the band a little bit; there’s a country-esque sounding clean guitar in the background. If Seperated is the sneak peak that I think it is, then I can definitely get behind Little Brazil in all future endeavors.
Here's the song I was talking about:
*Author's note- I love Gary Busey. He's awesome.
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