The Brother Kite – Isolation
Clairecords: 2010
Reviews usually come pretty easy for me. After I hear an album once, thrice, or ten times, the review begins to materialize in my mind. If I’m lucky (and I usually am), the album will conjure various emotions, thoughts, and memories, and I’ll use those as my watercolor paints (or cold hard ammunition). Certain songs or movements will give me vivid adjectives, verbs, sentence fragments, and they slowly build onto each other until I can practically see the paragraphs in my mind.
Unfortunately, with The Brother Kite’s new album, Isolation, I didn’t get that lucky.
This review gave me more trouble than most, and I’m not afraid to admit that weakness. But I believe it gave me trouble for a reason. If music is tremendously inspiring or so terrible that you feel incensed enough to even write about it negatively, then it’s doing its job. Art is supposed to provoke. If it doesn’t, then what the hell is the point?
The problem is that Isolation isn’t moving. It doesn’t inspire positivity or negativity. It just washes over you with waves of indifference. When struggling to write this review, I realized that The Brother Kite is difficult to describe in unique terms. They’re nice guys and gals forever stuck in reverie, much like the Memphis group Magic Kids. They’re musically ambitious indie types reminiscent of Ra Ra Riot. They dabble in the sentimentality of Northwestern bands like Death Cab for Cutie or The Decemberists. There’s some Smashing Pumpkins-flavored alt pop (the nicer songs), and if you listen closely, a little bit of The Cure, and a little bit of Americana. Can you spot a pattern in this paragraph?
Using other bands as frames of reference usually isn’t a good sign, and it’s something I prefer to avoid. Sadly, The Brother Kite can’t be described using a unique lexicon because they don’t offer anything to inspire such language. Perhaps it could be argued that they blend so many established ingredients that they eventually create a new flavor, but if that’s the case, then it’s a bland flavor. “The Great Divide” sounds a little too much like the Pumpkins’ hit “Today”, and the opening chords of “Searching for the Light” sound a little too much like something you’d find on a Cure album. Perhaps the folks in The Brother Kite would say that we’re hearing the bands that inspire them, but you’ve got to own your influences—if you let it happen the other way around, then you risk sounding boring. Here’s a way of thinking about it: at this point, what does Isolation offer that you can’t find elsewhere? Or better?
Here’s my attempt at trying to sum up Isolation without using band comparisons or obvious opinion: on Isolation, The Brother Kite use sweet-sounding, uplifting (and simple) guitar melodies, lush, layered instrumentation, and relatable lyrics. If you like autumnal, Northeastern pop rock, then maybe Isolation is your warm cup of tea.
There. If you’re a consumer hoping to gather a simple description about this album before you download it, there you have it. But answer me this: even after reading that short paragraph, do you really even imagine how this album might sound? Probably not—the paragraph is vague and clichéd because Isolation sounds vague and clichéd (hey, my job is to take the music and entire listening experience and translate it into words—mission accomplished).
This lack of individuality is a problem. The music world is over-saturated. More albums have been released this year than ever, and next year, we’re slated to see even more. Most music enthusiasts don’t remember what it’s like to spend time with albums anymore because we’re downloading five, ten albums a week and trying to enjoy all of them, but we can’t. The Brother Kite is likely a product of the same social media machines that make the music industry increasingly Darwinian—bands have to hustle if they want to sell albums at all. Isolation seems nice enough, but it just doesn’t have what it takes to stand out.
2.5 out of 5
