Brass – Set & Drift

As a reviewer, it’s a very rare thing when I regret to inform. It’s not often that there’s solely one element or instrument of a band or record that decidedly turns me off. I mean, I really like a lot of what Brass is doing. I like the chipboard packaging and restrained, ethereal layout they’ve got going – matches the music perfectly. I like the fact that they go from thrumming, kinetic parts that give way to calm, meandering, dare I say pretty melodies. I like the fact that they’re consistently playing around with the dense and melancholic structured-mass-of-noise that was one of the few good elements of much of, say, Dischord’s roster throughout the 1990s. I like the fact that their lyrics are cryptic as hell but don’t dumb themselves down for the listener. I like the fact that I can namedrop musical similarities without even trying too hard:The Shivering, Life At These Speeds, Arcade Fire, Daniel Striped Tiger, Death Cab For Cutie, Yage.

Set & Drift is an album that’s wholly formed, consistent in its approach and musically powerful. I’ll freely admit that. The five folks that make up this band know exactly what they’re doing, and in no way, shape or form did they sell the listener short on this record.

That said, here’s where the regret comes in. Despite its atmosphere and consistency, despite its prowess and strength, I just cannot stand Joe Webber’s vocals. He sounds like an unfortunate amalgamation of the vocalist from Boy Sets Fire (when that guy really tried to croon his ass off, which was much too often) and Michael Stipe. And I just find his vocals so repellent that it makes it really hard to fully enjoy the musicianship of Set & Drift. It’s purely a matter of aesthetics; the guy isn’t doing his job poorly or half-assed – if anything, he’s confident and unflinching in his delivery – I just don’t like em. If Webber would just let out a goddamn shriek every once in a while to offset his own melodies, it’d carry me a long way – the closest we get is in “Tall Ships”, where another band member is doing just that, very, very faintly in the background. Unfortunately, 30 seconds of it isn’t enough to endear me to Webber’s delivery throughout the 30 minutes of the rest of the record.