Posted on: May 11, 2009 Posted by: anfnewsacct Comments: 0

It has been nearly 3 years since I have reviewed Brazil. A lot can happen in three years, so what I felt about the band in 2004 should not be influencing what I feel about Brazil now. “On Safe-Cracking and Rubella” is an opening track that uses mundane noises to make a track. The disc’s first musical track comes during “Crime”, and it provides listeners with an interesting look into Brazil. There is not an easy way to categorize Brazil, besides as a rock band that has hints of emo influences.

There are very tentative and jangly compositions during “Crime”, but at the same time, the band seems to draw from the same wellspring as acts like My Chemical Romance. This album will take a lot of listens to firmly get behind. There are so many things happening during an average Brazil track on “The Philosophy of Velocity” that it is hard just to pick up the album. “You Never Know” continues in that tradition, with the band inserting in almost full distortion as point even as four or five distinct musical lines are present to interest listeners.

The bass is what provides the lifeline during “You Never Know” for individuals to grab onto; this does not, however, make the track easy to fully understand. For those individuals that just wish to zone out to the music while they are working out, “The Philosophy of Velocity” is not an album that one can easy do that with. The album is nearly fifty minutes f these very intricate compositions. This means that individuals will literally have days of music to go through and fully “get”. A track like “The Vapours” seem to pull on the tradition laid out by The Who during their seminal work “Tommy”. What seems to be going on during this track (or it may have been going on during the entirety of the track and I have not heard it until then) is that the band is setting up for subsequent tracks to work on some sort of larger narrative – Brazil is creating a theme album here. Brazil’s music is difficult but the one thing that can never be challenged is the ability of the band to come up with an interesting set of compositions that individuals will have to honestly sit down and figure out. The music is solid but may not reach as large of an audience as it really should.

Top Tracks: Cameo, A Year In Heaven

Rating: 6.0/10

Brazil – The Philosophy of Velocity / 2006 Immortal / 12 Tracks / http://www.braziltheband.com / http://www.immortalrecords.com / Reviewed 21 May 2007

[JMcQ]

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