Culture

“give me highbrow, or give me death”
With the long awaited constant love forever, ex-Dunedin trio brains should silence all ‘the haters’. Recorded in surprisingly fitting spacious high fidelity, a masterful ear for melody slowly reveals itself across the ten tracks. Removing the almost excessive distortion of previous recording, songs like “Tall Poppies” are instantly catchy, with brains’ rhythm section providing a loose but perfectly driving base as the guitar scratches atop. With most tracks clocking in at sub-three minutes, each incites repeated listen. One of the albums’ many highlights, ‘Everybody Get Desperate’, blasts past the listener in a blur of repetition and cutting guitar. Vocalist Matthew ‘McMatthew’ McAuley’s talent for angst-laden one-liners shines throughout when he delivers the sadly relatable gem “I don’t like you, I just wanna fuck your friends” on ‘Everybody Get Desperate’.  However, album stand-out is easily the slower paced ‘I Think I Love You’. Asserting itself as a near ‘genre pinnacle’, it fuses beauty and rage in equal measure. In what could probably be described as the album’s ‘poppiest’ moment, the track’s instrumental sections are breathtaking, heavily reverbed guitar cut by desperate cries from McAuley. It’s an album of stunning cohesion, power and beauty. As McMatthew himself would say ‘haters s my d’.
4.5/5