The Briggs – Back To Higher Ground

I still remember sitting amongst the beautiful backdrop of Canmore, Alberta and ripping open The Briggs‘ Leaving The Ways for the first time; and frankly I loved it. While it wasn’t an EP I continually pulled out, I never forgot it and was always happy when they came on in shuffle on my iPod. When I heard that they were coming out with a full length, I was pumped, and after multiple listens to Back To Higher Ground, it’s incredibly obvious that they were able to live up to all my expectations and more.

Back To Higher Ground is a solid release. A very solid release from front to back. The album breathes with energy and excitement with the simplistic and insanely memorable melodies. Every single song is a perfect sing-along. They are sailor chants that can’t help but bring people together and as you listen to tracks like Song Of Babylon and Wasting Time you can only envision a group of people telling stories and sing along. They are first pumping anthems and with choruses that just get hammered into you instantly as they merge the best parts of punk, rock and old sailor gusto filled to the rim of steady beats and the occasional “woahs.”

Think for a second of bands like The Lawrence Arms and One Man Army slowed down a bit and molded with the Oi! fell of the Dropkick Murphys and the old fashion punk styles of Stiff Little Fingersand you will have yourself The Briggs; and Back To Higher Ground is a solid, fun, entertaining release that never becomes boring or repetitive no matter how much you listen to it.

Throughout the album there’s only two little sections that hinder the album in miniscule ways. The first comes with Insane, a track that resembles slightly to Bryan Adam‘s Summer Of ’69 melody and sound wise. And while it’s a fairly decent track, it is probably also the album’s weakest because it slows down the momentum a bit too much and takes away from some of the energy that was built up until that point. But it’s still a good track, so it’s forgivable, but it could possibly have used a better placement. The second stumble comes from Blacklist, an amazing song that is just cut too short too abruptly. The song has easily the funnest and most energizing chorus, but as they repeat it over and over again at the end of the song, instead of letting it trail off or end smoothly they just pull the plug and give you radio static instead in the middle of a word. It just shocks you and hinders the flow once again.

Other than that, this album is great. It’s not one I’ll pull out constantly, but I will pull it out quite often and I know I’ll never get bored of it.