Album Review: The Cutthroat Brothers – Live In Europe

In November of 2019 The Cutthroat Brothers were slicing and dicing a bloody path on their successful first European tour. From Berlin to Belgium and beyond, the crowds are wild and the music is razor sharp. Everything is set for these real-life barbers to return and blood-let more of Europe with their brash and ballsy garage punk in May of 2020. Suddenly, a change of plans! Covid-19 happens and everything grinds to a screeching halt. A global pandemic followed by travel bans and quarantine changes everything overnight, causing The Cutthroat Brothers’ upcoming tour to be postponed. In the midst of the chaos, at the bottom of a carry on bag, a recording from the last show of the duo’s first tour of Europe is unearthed.

Now I know what you’re thinking, live albums are almost inevitably disappointing affairs, online debates around the best live albums almost inevitably feature the same handful of names being thrown into the ring. Why is this? in my experience they are either overproduced and overdubbed into submission, sometimes weirdly flat and lifeless or so rough and ready they resemble the bootleg recordings that used to populate dubious market stalls, recordings that promised much but often delivered little beyond a muffled recording and the conversations of those stood near the source. But, and it’s a really important but, there are exceptions, the few live recordings that manage to capture the night perfectly are something to treasure. “Live In Europe” is now firmly perched on that diminutive pile of essential live albums.

Recorded on November 23rd 2019 at Muziekclub 4AD in Belgium, “Live In Europe” features twelve tight and feverish renditions from the band’s two full length releases, 2018’s “The Cutthroat Brothers” and 2019’s “Taste For Evil“. From the first evil overdriven slide guitar riff and invocation to come closer, you can almost feel the sweaty bodies and sense that distinct odour of venues everywhere. Stripped back from the studio The Cutthroat Brothers are the dark side of rock ‘n roll incarnate. The primal beat is ever present, with only a crash of drums or a fading guitar chord to mark the end of one track before they launch into the next one of the twelve dark cuts that populate the set. “Live In Europe” is a double edged sword, on the one hand it reminds you just what an important part of our lives live music is, it also sadly brings it home that it may be while before we experience it again, and more to the point that I should have been watching The Cutthroat Brothers for myself this month.

“Live In Europe” is available via The Cutthroat Brothers website here