New Brutalism

New Brutalism 2001-2003 (2005)

Jesse Raub

Art rock. No, honestly. This band was started as part of an art collective. They released a lot of singles on vinyl. They name their songs after numbers. They constructed their instruments out of aluminum. No joke. This three-piece plays aluminum instruments. I mean, a band this pretentious has to suck, right? I mean, they must just be horrific.

Dear God. Is that…could that be…good music pumping into my headphones? Are those badass riffs that I am hearing? And those drums! They're rock drums! The songs are short. There's shouting, and some screaming. And it's all rock! There's nothing sissy about it!

From what I understand, this album is about forty minutes of rock songs that were all taken from out of print vinyl releases. And the songs are actually pretty good. Definitely a Drive Like Jehu influence that you can feel. And it's totally listenable. I don't know what more to say.

This band shows promise. Maybe they might rock pretty hard in a year or so. Or maybe they rock pretty hard right now. I've got no idea, I'm just working off of this compilation. If it sounds like your thing, I'd suggest picking this up because there's no better place to start with a band than with their earlier material, and from what I gather, this is some of their earlier stuff. Cool, eh? Lujo did all the work for you, now just check it out.