Chris Brokaw
Red Cities
Atavistic
Chris Brokaw has been around and doing his thing for a long time now in his much-lauded band, Come, and in Pullman, with a member or two of Tortoise. There’s no question about validity, it would be unfair to insult him for biting at the ankles of post-rock paragons. I’m sorry to use the term, for all of you offended artists out there, but let’s face facts, allegedly “pretty” music with endlessly repetitive instrumental passages in strange time signatures exists.
This album is terribly mundane. A guitar and some percussion, playing repetitive rock music. No more, no less. Not a single surprise, nuance, out-of-tune or off-beat note. Just emotionless pounding for 60 minutes. I pray that I’m missing something. That there’s some sort of epiphany in the fact that the album, Red Cities, is a complete void. Chris Brokaw is even capable of taking all the joy out of Burt Bacharach, as he does in his cover of “The Look of Love.”
If you want something really desolate and completely washed out, this is the album for you. Maybe there are nihilist teenagers out there who can really sink their teeth into this release. This kind of guitar rock blandness is just too exhausting for me.
Chris Brokaw: http://www.chrisbrokaw.com
