The Brute Chorus - Chateau
Staring off moody and dark, with delicately off-centre vocals reminiscent of nu-blues pioneers The White Stripes. The comparison doesn’t end a few bars in, as a pulsing heartbeat of a bass drumbeat enters the picture. Ah, but there’s actually a bass now. I was getting worried they’d be dismissed as Stripes copyists.
As the song develops it’s in danger of sounding like Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tusk’ being played by one person attempting to hit every instrument in a music shop. So it’s chaotic, disturbing, and very, very loud. Which is great, because the dynamics really make this song, and stops it from being too contrived. Held together, albeit tenuously, by a simple bass riff, this song dips in and out of utter chaos so many times that you never lose interest. Just don’t use it as background music. One minute, quiet and stalking, the next the ‘kitchen sink’ approach seems to have been applied to the production.
No wonder these guys “don’t get many visitors to their chateau” - they’d scare anyone off. Their scattergun approach to musicianship could have ended really badly, but surprisingly doesn’t. Don’t think of it as Strips copying, but a natural evolution of experimental blues-rock. Curiously appealing.
B-side (or AA side, as they have it - it is a CD after all) ‘’ has the same jaunty country-blues-rock speed-freak approach. Mixing female and male vocals and another central bass riff, this isn’t as chaotic as the A-side, but just as appealing in its eccentricity. Imagine the Stripes starring in a romantic western, complete with ‘duelling banjoes’ sountrack, and you won’t be far off. Except it’s curiously chart-worthy. I give up - you listen and try and describe it.