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II: Swear to Me
Brainworms
Reviewed by: Jake Cary [Sun, January 10, 2010 @ 12:37:21 AM]
Richmond, Virginia’s Brainworms have a lot going for them. They have passion, talent, and absolutely incredible production. The majority of the music on this release is fast, short and driving; unfortunately they stray from this pattern just enough to skew those characteristics.
The VA 5 piece kicks off their newest album, Swear to Me with 3 tracks that sound like a fight between O’ Pioneers! and Refused. They give a good idea of what the listener can expect with these first few songs, chocked full of melodic-punk guitars and animalistic howling on top of them. However, there are roadblocks that seriously disrupt the flow that they have going.
Track 4, ‘Vulgar Display of Flowers’ is the first without vocals, and rather than the fervent bursts of music that the CD opened with, the band uses this track to slow the pace and give the listener a chance to breathe. The band is very talented musically, but without the vocals it sounds like a hundred things you’ve already heard.
Vocals come back on the next song, ‘Which Words,’ thankfully, and kick off another mini-marathon of spastic guitars and passionate lyrics. This is one of the best on the record, because it really shows all the different things the band has to offer. Even this track slows down in the middle (similar to the pacing of the previous song,) but because there are still vocals over these breaks it serves as a nice display of what they’re capable of rather than a ‘throw away’ track.
Track seven starts with a strange Jello Biafra spoken word feel, which also seems to take away from the flow they’ve built up through the previous few songs. However, a few minutes in it transforms into a bombastic display and finishes strong.
‘The Pinnacle of Story Telling’ is the second and final instrumental song, and although it’s faster than ‘Vulgar Display’ it’s still missing the fire that the vocals give the other tracks. It’s barely a minute long, and, like the other instrumental effort, seems to do more harm than good.
The album closes strong with 2 more solid tracks, and rounds out the record at under 28 minutes of music.
A little-known band like Brainworms has to do something different in order to make a name for themselves, and that ‘something different’ is unquestionably the vocals. There is some strange pacing in the delivery of the lyrics, but because it is all occurring so fast and with so much energy the listener doesn’t get time to dwell on that. It’s a good full length, but it could have been an amazing 5/6 song EP. Hopefully this young band will continue to find their sound and keep putting out records, because if they do they could be a rock machine.
7.5 out of 10
RIYL O’ Pioneers!, Please Mr. Gravedigger
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