The Blood Brothers - Young Machetes (V2)

Sometimes I like to think that there’s a vague (read: probably nonexistent) link between Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” and The Blood Brothers. Both share a unique obsession with the chaos of sex, love and the human form and both seem to be fond of elegant, exclamatory bursts. But I know that’s where it ends. After all, where Whitman was a free-wheeling, naturalist poet, The Blood Brothers are a weighty, post-whatever-you-want-to-call-it-core band from Seattle. But shortsighted comparisons aside, Young Machetes has The Blood Brothers continuing to confound PR men with a unique brand of keyboard-laden punk rock. Taken in context with their previous two efforts, Young Machetes is a great hybrid. If Burn Piano Island, Burn was the thesis and Crimes the antithesis, songs like “Camouflage, Camouflage” and “Vital Beach” are the perfect synthesis, blending the overwrought complexity of the former with the more accessible simplicity of the latter. Of course, the occasionally long-winded lyrics remain, but they still work for them. Besides, I’m sure some kid in some town is happy that he can still rip out their liner notes and try to claim their words as his own in his Poetry 101 class.

– Miles Clements