Rock-Write From The Vault: The Blood Brothers--Young Machetes

Word has it, The Blood Brothers will be performing this summer in LA at the FYF fest after a seven year hiatus. If you know what's good for you, catch them in action while you can. The rest of the FYF lineup is perdy darn good too (including Slowdive, Slint (!), Interpol, Boris etc). In '06 I was pretty enamored by Young Machetes and wrote a review of it at the Three Imaginary Girls site. Here's an excerpt:

The overarching strength of this CD is in its cohesiveness. Not in the sense of marketing or production values (though each are notable) as much as Young Machetes being a collection of songs that gels thematically. The sound of loud, frantic, claustrophobic music at its base level should mean the same thing philosophically. So, when the Blood Brothers effectually say something like "we're all fu**ed" the music means it at the same time.

Of all the hordes of bands fueled by disagreeableness, far too many take the easy way out by targeting something obvious like bad foreign policy (which the BB's do pull off pretty effectively on "Street Wars / Exotic Foxholes" and "Huge Gold AK47"). Thankfully, Young Machetes is more complex than that; it's an exercise in opposites for the sake of gaining moral clarity. Yes, moral clarity.

You can read the rest of the review here.