Broken Records 'Until The Earth Begins To Part'

Back in January I labelled Edinburgh's Broken Records as the band to watch this year. Between their early singles and the release of this debut LP, their sound has evolved a little from the Scottish Indie Arcade Fire of their early releases to the Big Music sound that you can hear on 'Until The Earth Begins To Part'. It takes some getting used to and it won't be to everyone's taste, but to my ears this is a wonderful, joyous record.

I can't imagine anyone reviewing this record will fail to mention The Waterboys, because the music is big, loud and epic and Jamie Sutherland's forceful, passionate vocals remind me of a young Mike Scott. The record is full of brush strokes.. piano, accordion, violins, cello, trumpet..all here. The music is dramatic, energetic and powerful.

But none of this would mean a thing if the songs didn't do the sound justice and in the main, they do. 'Nearly Home' is the perfect opener, building slowly and then crashing to a dramatic finale, Sutherland employing his falsetto vocal for the first time. The title track and 'If The News Makes You Sad, Don't Watch It' are anthemic stompers, 'Until The Earth...' in particular is a perfectly constructed feelgood folk-rock anthem, piano intro, slow build, big electric guitar chords in the background and then a huge, epic finish.

A whole record like this would be pretty exhausting though and luckily they don't attempt that. 'Wolves' and 'Ghosts' are the primary departures, both ballads and in the case of the former especially, really beautiful with some haunting piano and an effortless melody... they just about resist the temptation to turn it into 'November Rain'!

My only criticism here is that Sutherland has the 'passionometer' on his vocals turned up to 11 pretty much throughout, even when he is singing a quieter number with some restraint, you know he is just building up for a roll of the drums and a chance to cut loose again. Bruce Springsteen sounds subdued in comparison. It might not be to everyone's tastes.

You'd have to be pretty hard-hearted not to enjoy this though. Let's be honest, it sounds bloody good. Every instrument known to man is played here and while the lyrics break no new ground, all about love, unity etc (there are a few topical digs at politicians too, nothing more profound than "they don't speak for me"), you'll find yourself singing along. I have a strong suspicion that Broken Records would be completely awesome live and I will be testing this out on a couple of occasions in the near future.

Big, passionate, feel-good music. Nothing at all wrong with that.

9.2

['Until The Earth Begins To Part' is out now on cd/vinyl/dl on 4AD. Broken Records play the ICA on 9th June and support The National at RFH in August]