the brakes
@the brakes
6Following
6Followers
Philadelphia, PA USA
Joined Apr 4, 2008
The Brakes are a genuine rock and roll band at first glance. However given a closer look, elements of folk, jazz and even post-rock reveal themselves, making their sound a distinct intertwining of American music, held together by insightful lyrics and memorable songs. Their musicality shines through as the members switch instruments, trading guitars, basses and keyboards for trumpets and saxophones. The band’s success is evident in the range of acts that this band has shared the bill with: Dave Matthews Band to The Hold Steady, Live to Willie Nelson & John Fogerty.
This past spring, their diverse talents were highlighted when the band took on dual city residencies, performing weekly in New York City and Philadelphia. Inhabiting The Knitting Factory in NYC every Tuesday and at Milkboy in Ardmore, PA every Thursday, the band effortlessly transitioned from famed NYC rock club to intimate listening room, often times re-arranging their songs for each different setting.
These historic performances were captured on record with the help of Milkboy Recording’s Tommy Joyner (Gomez, The Dixie Hummingbirds). The album entitled "Tale of Two Cities" is on Amazon, iTunes, and in stores right now!!
"Tale of Two Cities" Reviewed in The Village Voice!
May 14, 2008
MAY 13, 2008 The Brakes' Tale of Two Cities Hyena Records A monument to calmly neurotic pop excellence by Edd Hurt Unlike any number of pop musicians who take refuge in formalism, the Brakes sound like they know all about the way the world can pass you by when you're looking for a love to call your own. Recorded live last year in New York and back home in Philadelphia, Tale of Two Cities gets structural with twin-guitar breaks, elegant soft-shoe piano, and funk rhythms that are jumpy and a little bookish. It's a tight, controlled, expert pop record that sounds suspiciously even-handed, as if the quintet's neuroses have been conquered all too successfully. The fancy chord changes and double-time passages convey what the arch lyrics don't, as chief songwriter Zach Djanikian croons soulfully about women he notices "standing in a hurry" in supermarket lines, along with other big-city perils. "Supermarket" and "Big Money" make a case for these guys as harbingers of newfangled post-rock that recalls the relaxed post-boogie of such '70s bands relics as Little Feat and Orleans—you could imagine them covering "Easy to Slip" or "Still the One" with a straight face. "Big Money" rhymes death march with good heart and sports guitars that evoke the Allman Brothers and Big Star. "Boat Trip" works variations on country-rock, while the title track is a modified soul ballad in 6/8 that tells the sad tale of a beggar who was "at one time a maker of fine automobiles." The Brakes' ecstasy seems as qualified as their optimism seems earned, so Two Cities hangs onto its bag of tricks for dear life, which means the songwriting fades halfway through even as the level of musical invention remains high. It's the blessed details that count here: Every droll slide-guitar lick, piano fill, and power-packed coda edges The Brakes closer to the kind of elusive, worldly bliss that makes even formalism alluring. http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0820,a-monument-to-calmly-neurotic-pop-excellence,440973,22.html
