Brave Bird

T-minus Grand Gesture EP

Written by: HES on 29/06/2014 02:10:52

I am sorry if I steal the focus from Brave Bird already within the first line of this review, but this band is so musically close to Brand New's vocal styling, that I have to attack it like a hound for a jugular. The reason, in my humble opinion, that Brave New became a massive success in the 2000s has a lot to do with the laid back, non-impressive, untrained vocal styling of Jesse Lacey. Now many a band has since tried to emulate this style by having singers that had absolutely no vocal skills whatsoever because this bears a slight reminiscence to the Brand New-style. Brave Bird is one of these bands.

So you say the guy can't sing? Yeah. That's basically what I'm saying and even worse: I'm saying it's not in the charming way. On the track "I Don't Wanna Know" it actually sounds like Chris Lieu is completely out of tune. Either that or the shallow mixing reveals so little of some kind of melodic element that it puts the song on the verge of having none. As the song progresses into a more up-tempo bit we get a bit of decent guitar work and I'd say Lieu's screaming vocals are almost alright, if you look away from the higher parts of the screams where one could be tempted to think his voice is either still in teen-transition or that he at least is trying to evoke that sound.

All of this may have been alright if the production had felt a bit more on point, but as you can easily hear on "Rekindle" where guitars almost drown out the chorus vocals, production is a city in China on this album. The album honestly sounds like it has been recorded in a basement somewhere with no sound insulation. So it could've been saved by excellent songwriting, but the melodies and structures are quite banal in comparison to how many other pioneers of this genre have made both musical smash hits and intricate pieces of art. This EP's songwriting is mainly just characterized by being monotonous and repetitive. So by calculating all of these factors, it's probably quite obvious by now that I don't think I'll be putting this record on more than what suffices to write this review. And it's a pity 'cause this genre really needs some new heroes. At least it made me want to listen some more to Brand New.

4

Download: TMINUSGRANDGESTURE
For the fans of: Brand New
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Release date 20.05.2014
count your lucky stars

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