Brakes - The Beatific Visions (Rough Trade)
4/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
Brakes, the way I understand their history anyway, are the communal dumping ground for some of the utmost musicians of our time. From their days with other bands such as Electric Soft Parade and British Sea Power to their early work with Sigur Ros and later collaborations with country pianist David Briggs, Brakes have surrounded themselves with one of the most diverse collection of characters to form 'The Beatific Visions', their second album since their critically acclaimed and greatly celebrated 2002 formation.
Having recorded the bulk of the album in Tennessee there's a clear country vibe to the whole thing, but throughout it's been crossed pollinated with other genres such as punk, indie and electro meaning there's no easy pigeonhole for this piece, rather it's the sum of its components compiled to form a whole new element entirely. I can picture Flogging Molly fans spinning this and pogo jumping around while their country lovin' next door neighbours turn down the Kenny Rogers and enjoy a mutual appreciation of an album that's doing for these respected genres what Roxy Music did for Glam-rock way back when.
There's idyllic simplicity to this album to contrast its layers of shagging and abusive thrash-guitars and filthy vocals, and in no place is this clearer than 'Mobile Communication', a mid album song that helps put the grandeur of 'Beatific...' into view with exposed yet orderly and proficient vocals and Jackson Browne-esk instrumentations. Peel back the consortium of bewildering layers even more and you come across 'Isabel', an homage to the bands simplistic beginnings where many of the members would carry the torch of the project alone in acoustic shows, but this plunges swiftly into the albums title track and leading assemblage, 'The Beatific Visions'. With a resonance of San Francisco circa 1967 melted into an OK Go anthem, there's a Beck sense of "I don't give a shit what's cool" that inevitably turns into one of the crispest moments and mischievously surreal instants of the experience, and I say experience as unlike a lot of albums that could blend into your carpet, this is an 'experience'. It may not always be in-your-face muscle but the occasion comes from the shear scope and assortment that it's managed to touch from the Beatles swinging psychedelic, almost Magic Numbers guitar trouncing, 'Porcupine and Pineapple' to the late Stranglers embodied 'Cease and Desist'.
Even some Ryan Adams familiarities crop up in tunes such as 'On Your Side' and some Oberst injected wonder in 'No Return', but like all good albums there's more to entertain and compel after all the comparisons have been made. After you've gazed at an album and undressed it to its influences few still retain an air of obscurity but with the majority of its tracks still managing to astonish as the album progresses, 'The Beatific Visions' is among the best that have been released this year and easily combine, for me anyway, some of the greatest song writing principals that exist today and lay them across one CD like a musical finger buffet of leg waving choice and comparisons like the White Stripes before them and hopefully many more that follow.
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