Neighbourhood Brats – Recovery

Punk is a beautiful thing, it might be a little raw and rough, it might make you into a rattling fiend, it might obscure your hearts soft beats, but it will always be insightful and highly strung. Neighbourhood Brats live off that ethos. The band know how to soften the core and they know how to place a hard exterior around it too. With Recovery, Neighbourhood Brats have excelled, they’ve placed their punk spirit in between the lines and have let their exuberance and excitement spill over.

The rugged guitar sounds  are insanely good, the sequences are inspiring; the thematic punk aura travels through the structure that has been built by this likeable band. The key notes and fluttering musical drama is explosive at times, you can almost smell the carnage, pulling at the hairs in your nostrils.

Recovery blasts in with Year Of The Brat. It’s a song that has those immediate sneers that’ll hook you in. The belting drums and highly driven guitar work brilliantly, securing a majestic finish. One Wasted Year is evocative and sincere, bruised by sadness and yearning. The female vocals add a tenderness. The lyrics are about feeling victimised and that awful feeling of self-hate.

Suburbia sounds different. The tones echo. The guitar slaps the melody hard. The roughness is well engineered. An atmospheric tinge is also apparent, spraying it’s vibe like a rain storm. Lip Service evokes with a soaring guitar riff that will please the punk order. It’s about life being stale and making no sense. I sense a little spurt of alienation.

Neighbourhood Brats have excelled with Recovery. The riffs are monumental and the brashness somewhat attractive – the way punk is meant to be.