Brigade – Come Morning We Fight
Filed under: Album Reviews by ChrisNo Comments »
I write this in a bad mood. My laptop is being stupid and I burnt my toast about 10 minutes ago. This does not bode well for Brigade, a band who’s latest album ‘Come Morning We Fight’, i’m about to sit down to give my honest, open thought about.
But, luckily for them and me, i’m finding it hard not to like this album. This is my third real listen through it and each time i’ve liked it even more than the last. I can’t see it ever entering my Top 10 Albums Ever, but it’s entertaining, interesting, impressive and most importantly – amazingly listenable.
As this isn’t going to be released for another month or so (from time of writing, duh), i’m assuming you people will be wanting to know my opinion on it. Well, i’m going to give it to you. Good and hard. Ready?
The album kicks off with ‘What Are We Waiting For?’, probably my favourite song in the collection. It starts off at a decent clip and doesn’t let go; clear vocals and crowd-pleasing chorus should mean this is a future single and i’d be very surprised if it didn’t do well. It’s a great start to the album with the (gasp) emotional lyrics taking a backseat to the fantastic noise being made by the various instuments.
Lead single ‘Pilot’ is a clear crowd-pleaser, and the Funeral For a Friend crowd will lap it up. Personally, whilst I can’t really find fault, I can’t help but think there were better songs on this album that could have been used as lead, but this will surely earn them tons of brand new fans so it’s job will be done.
‘Stunning’, track number 5, sounds somewhere between Ash and Biffy Clyro. I like both of those bands. That’s all I really have to say on the matter, sorry.
The slowest & lightest song is the quite special ‘Four Kids…’ which is followed by an equally chilled out instrumental, giving a slight respite to the listener…before launching into Shortcuts, a solid rock track seemingly designed to wake up anyone who may have drifted off during the last two. Sounding as close to the Foo Fighters as anywhere else on the album, I can imagine this to be a crowd pleaser come the live shows.
The album doesn’t slow towards it’s tail end, keeping up the quality of earlier tracks and quite often surpassing it. Showing off frontman Wills flexible voice, the band prove they’re comfortable with mixing up their sound a little, regularly changing the pace and tone of their tracks and never losing an ounce of what makes them interesting. The lyrics are rarely throw-away and the band play with a sense of emotion that can be rare in rock these days, whilst never falling into the ‘emo’ trap.
It’s well worth sticking around for the ‘predictably hidden track’ at the end too!
With a sound somewhere between Funeral For a Friend and scottish rockers Aerogramme, it’s hard to imagine these guys not doing well. If nothing else, this albums shows a very promising young band finding their sound and executing it with style, aplomb and a large helping of passion. There, I got through the whole thing without mentioning Will Simpson’s semi-famous brother.
Recommended Listening: What Are We Waiting For?, Pilot, Shortcuts
Rating: 
For the sake of some closure, my laptop is still being stupid and my replacement toast has gone cold. Shit.
