Broken Records’ intimate show at the Glee Club was not just a gig, but a spectacle of shear awe-inspiring stuff.
Broken Records: Bedlam Theatre. © Ryan Dunn, brokenrecordsband.com
With the most energetic and passion-filled debut out so far this year, Broken Records would have filled the Glee Club’s Studio room with very little effort; the fact that they pumped out more energy than the National Grid that night, and it’s not surprising they were getting electric shocks from the microphones.
Opening for said BR were the gorgeously-fronted Scottish, American and Welsh band Sparrow and the Workshop. With a heads-up to pay attention to this one from our interview with Jamie Sutherland, the low-fi Americana triplet certainly didn’t disappoint in the slightest. Their nearly unique sound of strong percussion and country-fied acoustic guitar with ethereal vocals is reminiscent of Chan Marshall and Mazzy Star: it’s not hard to see this band one day playing prominent sets at Isle of White and Latitude-esque fests someday.
To Broken Records:
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you get to see these guys, you must. To see a band switch instruments so regularly is impressive enough. To seem to play them so effortlessly is even more awe-inspiring.
Any qualms the audience may have had about the band starting with the album opener ‘Nearly Home’ were quickly abolished as the violin and cello melodies intertwined like lace and front-man Sutherland’s grizzly and infinitely passionate vocals complimented them, building into an epic explosion of sound that seemed to be able to fill the Royal Albert Hall, let alone the little Glee Club. Looking at the audience, you could tell they were impressed.
After Cass the soundman’s intervention to stop electric shocks during singing, they went straight into typical Broken Records folk-pop ‘If the News Makes You Sad, Don’t Watch It’. Incredible timing driven by powerful and technical drumming overladen with deep and personal lyrics just increased the feeling of intimacy.
It was evident that the band were a little awkward performing to a seated audience, but this didn’t reflect on the energy they played with and was remediated by annecdotes about the soundman’s ‘fact of the day’, song meanings and a rather humerous attempt at the title track Until the Earth Begins to Part in the style of Tom Waits. Honestly, if you weren’t there, you missed out…big time.
Running through equally inspiring tracks both off the album (A Good Reason, Wolves, Thoughts On a Picture (In a Paper, January 2009)) and off EPs & singles (And They Fell Into the Sea, Lies) the set culminated with album finisher Slow Parade, which suited the night.
Overall, seeing Broken Records live is not just a gig, but a spectacle. The craftsmanship and timing of all members would be impressive enough even if the sound was dreadful, but it was far, far from it. Looking at the reaction of the audience to certain songs, the songs are easily connectible and in such a small venue, truly epic.
Check out BR last track from their debut album Until the Earth Begins to Part, “Slow Parade“. If you like what you hear, support this band and buy their album.
Broken Records’ debut album ‘Until the Earth Begins to Part’ from Rough Trade
Check out Moon & Back Music’s interview with Broken Record’s front-man Jamie Sutherland here.
