Rantings, reviews and lists from a person who structures half his life around obsessing over music.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The Blood Brothers - Crimes (2004)

4.0 ★/8.0 - 8.9

Many laws usually have an element of prejudice that comes specifically from within the community. For a good example, homosexuality is a crime under strict Christian rules. The Blood Brothers clearly had this in mind when titling their fourth studio album, Crimes. On it, the band may as well be a bunch of boisterously-clad, flaming queers strutting their stuff loud and proud in Sunday school. Except, in their case, the crimes committed aren't in violation of any of God's codes, but of the unwritten laws of the close-minded Hardcore scene. Crimes deviates from the proper path of a devote Hardcore album by inserting keyboards and Dance Punk into their style, occasionally getting Glam, usually flirting with melody, and embracing the heresy teachings of Emocore and most of it's proponents. Still, Blood Brothers are as cracked out, spazzy and painstakingly jerky as ever before. The duo's vocal chords emit the usual visceral, inhuman shrieks and squeals and the backing band sounds like they've just gone through a horror movie marathon while tripped out on speed. "Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck" and the title track are single-ready, but most of the other songs don't go down easy at all. "Feed Me To The Forest" is all metallic grind and disturbing industrial, before thrashing straight into the berserk "Trash Flavored Trash". The Cabaret style organs of "Peacock Skeleton With Crooked Feathers" are twisted enough to directly serve the songs' frantic and surreal agitation. "My First Kiss At the Public Execution" forces you through a meat grinder before rewarding you with the hooks.

The rest of the album follows suit accordingly, pushing and pulling between the catchy and the cutthroat with very few weak moments. As good as Burn Piano Island Burn was, this is the album that The Blood Brothers were born to make and it shows. Conservative hardcore fans might condemn them for "selling out" but they'll be ignoring the consistency here that's been lacking in all their previous albums and, more importantly, the fulfillment of potential that's been brewing in this band's growth for a few years. Crimes is a necessary peak in The Blood Brothers discography and living evidence that some rules are just made to be broken.

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