Brooders – Brooders mini-album     continues the Leeds underground lineage of crunching riffs

1oth Feb 2017

This Leeds power-trio crunch and fuzz up a British grunge in a huge pile of sound. With a couple of years together as a guitar and drums duo and a year as a trio, Brooders are a brotherhood of noise. While I’m not hearing anything totally new, I rejoice in the power of loud rock and this band follow the steps of other powerful locals like Pulled Apart By Horses and Castrovalva. I’ve not caught them live yet but I can already imagine the waves of sound.

After a couple of singles (featured here), the band have a mini-album, catchily titled “Brooders”. Half a dozen slabs of noise with brief pauses to catch your breath. Thrill Killer sets the scene with a fuzzed up menacing intro taking us into a racetrack riff-a-thon  of sprint / crunch / sprint / crunch. Cling (their second single) shows they can slow down a bit, as they edge from ballad into grunge. Say Your Prayers is perhaps a little obvious in its loud/ quiet formula, even with the nice double take to the loud sections’ opening riff. Haze is racy and punchy in attack, rising and falling smoothly from insistent quieter sections to hoarse roaring and caught a lot of ears as their first single. Blue Eyed Prince is the hit song of the set – uncharacteristically restrained and sounding all Artic Monkeys most of the way, until the dogs are let off the leash to thrash briefly. Melancholy wraps this small package off with a spot of distant echo, instrumental fireworks, a wall of noise and a stack of feedback.

It’s a short set but a good scene-setter and whets my appetite for hearing the band on stage.

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