The Blood Brothers have had a really really weird career. They have been on the unfortunate end of many label bankruptcies (first Artist Direct and later V2) and they have also been fortunate enough to be one of the most abrasive bands to ever have mass success (this record even debuted in the Billboard Top 100) They forced the homophobic hardcore scene to embrace a little femininity which sassiness and fashion.
So it is a bummer this band broke up, and it is a little bit more of a bummer that their last record Young Machetes didn't have the singular visions of their previous records, however, this may be indicative of why the band broke up. The much revered Burn, Piano Island, Burn was a constant blasts of all members playing all notes all the time and the better selling but fan repellent Crimes was a more focused, simpler and at times poppy execution of the strange and terrifying caterwauls about fucked-up shit. After the introduction of more keyboard oriented songs with beats you could dance to, the exact opposite, it was exciting to think of where the Blood Brothers could go from there.
"Set Fire to the Face on Fire" starts the album off brilliantly with a chant of "Fire! Fire! Fire!" before giving way to an awkward pogo drum beat and single-note shredding on the guitar. This makes for one of the best songs on the record, which often goes down similar paths as this song but often times so disjointedly that the songs lose their personality. There are a lot of songs on this record, and the Blood Brothers have gone back to displaying all of their technical powers full force on a lot of them, so by track fourteen they blend together a little bit.
There are a handful of Crimes-esque bizarre pop-gems on this record and for the most part they are pretty good but they aren't treading any new ground. "Spit Shine Your Black Lungs" is the clear stand out of these songs, with its stomping drum beat and both vocalists letting their respective catty and snotty voices do everything accomplish what bands with normal sounding singers never could. Young Machetes also brings a lot more quiet and atmospheric elements than we're used to hearing from the Blood Brothers which may be the new sound that they were planning to focus this record around. While there are hits and misses, it is amazing to hear a band actually bring true dynamic to such abrasive music; the slow build-up to the My-Bloody-Valentine-meets-a-million-bulldozers drone at the end of "Lift the Veil, Kiss the Tank" shines as one of the best moments in this band's career.
Unfortunately, the schizophrenia of this album causes it to be ultimately a bit too long. It seems as if singers Jordan and Johnny's side projects (the ferocious Head Wound City and the grooving swaggering Neon Blonde) have lead this album to be divided between the intense and the accessible. The problem is that people loved this band because they were intense and accessible, and dividing the two 'causes a lot of these songs not to match up with ones on previous records. One has to wonder if the plan was to unite to make a quiet moody record, but fears of more fan backlash invited the elements of their previous work.
But probably not. The Blood Brothers never seemed like a band that could give a flying fuck. Another reason people loved this band, probably the main reason, is that they didn't sound a thing like anything that ever came before it, and many imitators have failed at continuing the bands legacy. While this record being TOO much might make a little lower on the totem pole than the last two records, it is light years ahead of what anyone of this genre was ever thinking. It is a shame that two labels going bankrupt may have ruptured what was probably the brightest hope of the hardcore scene. I just hope someday someone can grab the torch from these guys, but by the end they had really run so far past their competition that it's gonna be tough.
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