BURNING BRIDES
Fall Of The Plastic Empire
(V2)
cd
14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Can we interest you in a heavy, garagey pop rock record, with a dark side? Kinda like Nirvana circa "Bleach"? Hmm? Well, if you're an avid reader of our lists/website, you might recall that we already gave a pretty rave review to a cd by Philadelphia garage rock band the Burning Brides back on list #112. Well, this new V2 release is actually that same album, just repackaged (with new art) and reissued by their new (way bigger) label, V2. (Weirdly, no mention of its original release on File 13 is made in any of the press material we've seen, though they do get thanked in the cd liner notes.) Anyway, we're glad it's come out again, 'cause although we said it was great last time, we didn't quite realize just HOW great. It ended up making several of our year end top ten lists, and now we're really happy to have get to gush about it again, making it a "Record of the Week" this time around, no less! Hopefully ours won't be the only hype this band will generate -- obviously V2 is banking on that, 'cause with the big MTV-approved Hives/White Stripes/Strokes/Vines garage rock bust-out phenomenon of 2001-2002, they must be figuring that Burning Brides could get a slice of that pie. And, darn it, they deserve it! This record *kicks ass* all over the Hives and the Vines (and, we like those bands!), seriously. And it didn't need the $100,000 production job the Vines got, either. No, this is real garage rock, originally released on a true indie label, as we said. Our previous review of this called it "gritty and unkempt garage/sludge" and made a lot out of its sonic similarities to the Stooges. Drunken swagger and snotty attitude, all that good stuff. We did mention Nirvana, Sabbath, and the Beatles, but maybe overdid the Stooges angle. Now we'd say: if you like any of that new-school garage stuff, you've gotta check this out. It's noisy and raw and rockin', but also melodic and atmospheric. Catchy as hell, groovy yet pyschedelically droney, complete with handclaps, wah wah guitar solos, instrumental break downs, some metallic riffing, and, most importantly, a whole bunch of great stick-in-your-head choruses. There's not a weak song in the bunch -- they all rock. So if you missed out the first time, you've now been given another chance to get with the Burning Brides program! Such a good record. (And we only hope that for those of us who already got this last year, that the Brides might have a NEW new record in the pipeline too...)
RealAudio clip: "Plank Of Fire"
RealAudio clip: "If I'm A Man"
RealAudio clip: "Arctic Snow"
RealAudio clip: "Stabbed In The Back Of The Heart"