Album Review: Broken Wires – Author of Your World
Last month, I reviewed the Broken Wires songs ‘Coffee Rock’ and ‘The Merchant’ for this dear magazine, and the band have since released an additional seven songs in the form of their debut album Author of Your World.
The first few chords on opener ‘Coffee Rock’ sound more than a little like Nirvana’s ‘Territorial Pissings’, which is appropriate, as the band instantly make their mark with the force of a pit bull hosing the base of a tree. If that seems somewhat aggressive, then your delicate ears may not be ready for the classic rock that follows.
The riff on next track ‘Hour of Change’ has the swagger of Robert Plant in his skinny-jeaned 70s pomp. An excerpt from a JFK speech makes an entrance as the tempo briefly slows like the quieter bits on Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness, then at three and a half minutes it goes all Hawkwind space rock. It’s a truly turbulent trajectory to the stars, with more genres in one song than most bands manage in their whole career.
‘Just Fine’ is just great, with Emma’s smooth, funky bass bringing to my odd mind Tobey Maguire’s cool walk in Spider-Man. The saxophone towards the end is an unexpected and pleasant surprise – a Baker Street flourish after some thrashing Fratellis-eseque guitars.
Both ‘Damn Dance’ and ‘Private Climate’ begin with muted strumming, à la Kings of Leon’s ‘Use Somebody’. On the former, Henry yells that ‘it doesn’t work like that!’, sounding as peeved as the Arctic Monkey’s Alex Turner defending his right to dabble in lounge rock. On ‘Private Climate’, Henry snarls: ‘I’m a rebel, she’s a good girl – not meant to be / I love her, she hates me – not meant to be.’ He talks a tough talk, but you’ve got to feel sorry for the lad. At least he’s got a tremendous band to keep him company. Indeed, their talent is typified by the two-minute instrumental track ‘Theatre of Sound’. George smacks his drums like he’s announcing the arrival of Zeus, and Frankie develops a grudge against his guitar and attacks the fretboard accordingly. Exhilarating.
Like ‘The Merchant’, album closer ‘9 Jewel Day Parade’ has a strutting riff that teleports the listener to 1970s New York – a daft yet entirely justifiable thing to say, given that the song is inspired by the film Donnie Brasco, in which an FBI agent goes undercover to infiltrate a criminal family in…1970s New York. It takes some skill to evoke such a precise mood, yet Broken Wires achieve it with ease. Shout out too for penultimate song ‘Money = Madness’, which has a pints aloft chorus that Ocean Colour Scene would, er, pay good money for.
Broken Wires are on a stairway to the 70s, but they regularly veer off into other directions. If you like to strut and generally move about in an exaggerated fashion, Author of Your World is the soundtrack to your world.
Find out more about Broken Wires via their LinkTree.
By: Neil Laurenson