Aural Aggravation

Come Play With Me – 6th April 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

I happened to catch Brooders when they supported Hands Off Gretel in York last summer, and was taken by their grungy tunes. Specifically, the combination of weight and melody. They’re probably to young to grow stubble, let alone have been born when Kurt Cobain was still alive, and yet they’ve got the whole thing nailed, encapsulating the spirit of c.1992 with aplomb.

‘Lie’ captures all of this, along with the energy of their live show, perfectly. The hefty psychedelic aspect of the sound is also well-represented. You might reference Alice in Chains and Queens of the Stone Age, and justifiably but there’s a sludgy density to the sound that brings another dimension.

Adam Bairstow (guitar / vocals, and to differentiate from the other Adams in the band – they’re like the Ramones or something, only they’re all called Adam) says of ‘Lie’, “It’s a culmination of the stresses and pressures that come with love, loss and paranoia all rolled into one brutally honest, twisted, chaotic track.”

For all this, it’s a strangely ambiguous sensation that bubbles in my gut when I wrestle with the notion of the youth of today appropriating the music of my own youth. However objectively one tries to critique music, it’s inevitable that any response to music or any art is personal and entirely subjective. Because the purpose of art is to stir an emotional response which has nothing to do with the mechanics and technicality of its production or process.

Is part of their appeal to me the fact they stir a certain nostalgia? As it happens, no. Grunge may have embossed itself within the sphere of my musical appreciation in my teens, but what I, like anyone else – I like to think – responds to is the language of sound and the overall sonic experience, spanning lyrics, instrumentation and dynamics.

These elements are all fundamental to the driving force that is ‘Lie’. There’s nothing about this snarling mess of overdriven guitars that suggests they’re trying to artificially recreate the zeitgeist of a previous age, or that they’re anything but entirely authentic. Most importantly, ‘Lie’ is a full-blooded, full-on riff-driven effort that sees Brooders come on with all guns blazing. And it’s a real rush.

AA