The name Bracket should not be unfamiliar to people my age. If you endured puberty to the sounds of Fat Wreck Chords and Drive Thru Records-type pop punk, you will remember the band Bracket�s name alongside NoFX, Good Riddance, and Lagwagon.
Bracket�s sound, however, was perhaps the most unique to the Fat Wreck Chords camp. No other band provided such strange yet enjoyable melodies, sometimes accompanied with layers of vocal harmonization at a time. This vocal mastering was backed with the chime of power-chord pop punk instrumentation.
The last Bracket studio record came out in 2000. Fat Wreck released a Bracket Live-in-a-Dive edition in 2002, and since then, uhh, I have no idea where they went until the upcoming release of Requiem in early February.
This seventeen-track album holds many surprises, unless you checked out the band�s purevolume audio samples. These songs are less punk than the band�s previous work, and that is a fact the band and their fans fully embrace. Of course there are several songs in the album that ring a nostalgic note of late 90s pop punk, but the band explores more angles of music throughout the rest of the album.
As made obvious by the first track of the album, many of the other songs have a very Pink Floyd-esque (circa The Wall) spin to them. The vocal work is even stranger and more unique than before. There is a recurring theme of harmonized whistling and humming. After all that, they go right back into pop punk singing style. I don�t get the feeling that they have aged one bit since they recorded E is for Everything, but they definitely grew into a more self-defined band.
Also notice the addition of some different instrumentations and odd outros to almost all the songs. If you need any reassurance that pop punk bands aren�t static and boring, Bracket is proof enough.
The year is 2006. Pop punk is evolving; in the case of Bracket, it is evolving out of being pop punk. Bracket has always been a different band, and this album is a different Bracket album. Pick it up on February 7th--you�ll be amazed.
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C.L. '06 |
