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Friday, March 29, 2024
The Observer

Blood Brothers stirs up more mayhem

Like a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerine plant, Seattle's infamous Blood Brothers have returned to wreak more havoc with their fourth full-length effort, "Crimes." Comprised of five friends ever seeking to push the proverbial envelope of punk music, the band has amassed considerable notoriety for its incendiary live shows and atypical lyrics, which read something like wrecking-ball beat poetry. Longtime fans should rejoice, as Blood Brothers are in top form once again on this latest release with the momentum built from 2003's explosive "...Burn, Piano Island, Burn" showing no signs of waning. Sounding like Junior Senior on PCP, the Brothers tear through 13 chaotic tracks on "Crimes," leaving listeners with little time to breathe and even less time to suture their ruptured eardrums. Showstopper "Peacock Skeleton With Crooked Feathers" opens with the characteristically damaged poetic Blood Brothers lyric, "If the sea shakes / like an empty maraca / and he falls in love / with the sound of ships sinking?" The song carries a rabid intensity through several "movements," a veritable head charge that will leave unwarned heads spinning and restless hearts craving more.Ironically, several of the Blood Brothers' concoctions have a sing-songy quality to them, with melodies that would not sound entirely out of place in a Disney direct-to-video pseudo-sequel, were they sung by cartoon animals using substantially bowdlerized lyrics. This is particularly true of title-track "Crimes" with its off-Broadway chorus of "We're scrapped valentines / We're tangerine rinds / We're crimes, crimes, crimes, crimes, crimes."This is noisy, spastic, highly unnerving rock that is anything but background music and will likely lead many to question its validity as music at all. It is perhaps no coincidence, that the same week that witnessed the arrival of "Crimes" saw the passing of preeminent deconstructionist Jacques Derrida.While certainly not for everyone, "Crimes" should excite those who are not afraid to make relentless, frenetic energy a part of their listening experience and positively exhilarate those who live by such energy.