The Brute Chorus – The Brute Chorus

Great story telling is all too rarely at the forefront of pop music. All too often a potentially awesome song is stopped squarely in its tracks by stunted, unimaginative lyrics, and there really is nothing worse than having your enjoyment of a song (or worse, an entire band) ruined as soon as the vocalist opens his mouth. So it’s with great pleasure that I report you will be hanging off every word sung by The Brute Chorus.

Frontman James Steel is akin to a modern-day blues troubadour, his merry band of players hailing from the countryside of Somerset, Cumbria and Southend; now operating out of a Whitechapel flat, The Brute Chorus definitely do things a little differently to most. Lyrical themes are more narrative than personal, and run from the story of a waning demi-god (“Well Hercules, Delilah and Samsom/Came together on an evening stage/Said Hercules to the other two/I’m beginning to feel my age”) to the brilliantly warped love song ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ (“She made me forget I was a poor boy/She made me feel like a king/And she gave me such pleasure felt like Nebuchadnezzar”).

Such is the bizarre world of the Brute Chorus. It’s seriously tricky to pick a stand-out track, so consistently brilliant is the lyrical content and delivery; confident, melodic and expressive.

Scuzzy bass, guitars bathed in crunch, frantic drumming and keyboards made to feedback through amps play their parts admirably too. The guitar tone is delicious Josh Homme-esque fuzz; the foot-stomping riffs succeed best in mirroring the off-kilter and gutsy vocal delivery, a real sense of play and passion shining through.

The dynamics and musical ideas are equally assured; they flirt with false-stops, rhythmic change ups, walls of noise and the odd harmony replete with psychotic growling in the background (‘The Ransome’). In short, the rhythm section is diabolically tight and inventive; influences include but are clearly not limited to rockabilly, bluegrass, orleans blues and twelve-bar. The end result is a sound the Brute Chorus can confidently call their own; a credit thrown into sharper relief as you realize the whole thing is sans studio jiggery-pokery.

Yep, you heard; perhaps most impressive is that this self titled album was recorded completely live in front of 300 loyal fans – testament to the band’s outrageous cockiness? Or their unshakable self-belief and rigorous professionalism?

Delightfully, both are true. This album could easily have been recorded in a studio but for the cheering following the track endings and the only mistake James Steel makes (That’ll be ‘The Ransome‘ again…) before apologizing in his own inimitable fashion: “I’m glad it was me that fucked up, I’ll abuse myself later.” In the future when a band comments on how they were eager not to over-produce their recording in order to capture a raw, live essence, they will have The Brute Chorus to model themselves on and answer to.

The Brute Chorus’ debut album then is a gripping flight of fancy; intelligent but visceral, refreshingly honest and expertly conceived. It’s a labour of love that can also, at times, feel a little rough around the edges and at 47 minutes ever so slightly too long. Still, without wanting to give too much away, this tale most definitely has a happy ending.

Buy the album from [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=331964032&s=143444&uo=4" title="The_Brute_Chorus-The_Brute_Chorus_(Album)" text="iTunes"]