The Brokedowns – Species Bender

The Brokedowns’ new album, Species Bender, was welcomed into my loving ear canals with warmth and anticipation. A gravely punk band from the suburbs of Chicago released on Red Scare Industries – how could this go wrong?

So when I saw the CD, I ripped off the wrapping and threw it in my CD player. Pressed played, listened, and thought… this is it?

The record was everything I loved – fast paced songs, gravely vocals, catchy hooks, energetic tempo where the song ends before you realize. It was a bearded punk’s wet dream delivered with some low-fi recording quality (that sounds incredibly good considering it was recorded across a variety of bathrooms, basements and bars). Species Bender was a record I should have loved and while I liked it, I couldn’t help but feel that it was missing something; and so I was disappointed.

Since then, I’ve listened to The Brokedowns many more times.  I’ve hit repeat and let it play again – three, four times in a row sometimes.  And in that time, it’s grown on me. Certain songs continually jump out – Skvll Skewl, This Cult is a Bummer, and Noble Riot are all worthy of praise.  The minute-seventeen Apocalypse Seaside Hits comes blaring through my speakers, re-instigating my love of this kind of punk rock while offering a nice reminder of what to expect from the new None More Black album. These are good songs, the way punk is supposed to be played: fast, catchy and raw.

And yet, it’s still missing something. It’s intangible and hard to be specific about what it is that they’re missing, but The Brokedowns just don’t seem to have that spark in them to make me gush over them. It’s not that they’re bad, far from it; it’s just not as good as I had hoped. Another case of over hyping expectations I guess.

I’m sure I’ll pull this out to play from time to time; and I’ll smile whenever they come up on my ipod but with so many other fantastic albums like this being put out on Paper + Plastick, No Idea Records andRed Scare; I can’t help but feel The Brokedowns may just end up getting lost in the shuffle.