Brief Candles - Fractured Days
Boy this has been a long time coming. It’s been what, five years since Brief Candles put out an album? All the while in between feeding listeners with a two song single that was kind of hard to get a hold of unless you got out to a show. To be honest, after finally getting a chance to hear the two songs on that single I was a bit weary. They left me with some mixed feelings in that neither song struck me right away. That still didn’t sway my excitement for this album, as their previous LP They Live, We Sleep was a fantastic chunk of alternative throwback and wavy guitar tones/melodies that have their influence very heavily rooted in shoegaze. In fact, I think that album is one of the few that I still give spins to here and there out of the plethora of bands trying to make their way through some revivalist movement of the genre. Can I even still call it that? I mean this shit has been going on for awhile now and doesn’t seem to be lessening any. Whether or not that’s true, if it means that a band like Brief Candles can come along every so often then I won’t mind.
Fractured Days is the groups 3rd album and first for Guilt Ridden Pop. It would appear that the band has shied away some from getting as expansive as they did with the previous album. Things are tightened up here, but still feature much of the explosiveness that often capped a number of their tunes. They are quite good at pulling that string, and aren’t afraid to really make you wait for it. It didn’t take long to dispel any doubts that I had after listening to their preceding single for the album. One of the songs from the single, “Sink or Swim”, sits at #3 here on the albums track listing and sounds leaps and bounds better from the version I heard before. Not sure if it’s been re-recorded or not, but it is far more resonant than before and sounds much like what I would have expected from band. As a whole, Fractured Days doesn’t necessarily diverge much from their previous material, but as I mentioned before, they’d hit a winning formula then and really there isn’t much of a reason to mess with something that doesn’t really need it. It’s really a shame that they don’t get more love from those that seek out anything and everything that touches this sort of sound. No matter, this is another solid effort from these folks and one that I imagine will be hanging around the stereo for awhile longer.
Brief Candles – Bitter End (stream)
For those that are interested in grabbing Fractured Days, then it’s available through CD Baby. I know it was available on vinyl at some point, but it looks to have since sold out. If you poke around through, it might be out there somewhere. Enjoy!
