Labels: Crackle Records
Review by: Andy Malcolm
I’ve been wanting to hear this band for a while now, and have finally managed to pick up a 7″ they recently did for Crackle records, replete with 3 brand new b-sides. And am I disappointed? Not even close.
Main track here, “Chestnut Road”, is practically flawless. Totally and utterly relentless melodic punk rock, with vocals that are almost the Leatherface sound, but not quite so rough. And here is the twist. It somehow verges on pop. Don’t ask me how. You just can’t intentionally stick feedback in there, play at 250mph, and not ‘sing’, yet make a pop sounding song can you? Yep. Broccoli do it here. Wish I knew what he was singing about, just to establish the full package.
Next up is “Television”, and excuse me, if it isn’t some emo-core, played with added pop. Leave it out. Its even better than the main track. Fast paced and tuneful, this has “music that Andy loves” written all over it in a childish scrawl. Simply awesome.
Turn to the flipside and you’re dealt “Crackle Song” which is back to the pure rocking pop with fast and loud guitars of the main track. And it burrows into your brain as the lyric “This life’s not a competition” is repeated in harmony over and over. Meanwhile the tune is an assault of pure brilliance. Fiendish. Only let down is the fact that the EP ends up on an instrumental with “Split Up”. Its not bad, but there is no way in the world it could live up to the 3 tracks that have gone before.
Simply put, this is the best 7″ single I’ve yet bought by a band I’d never heard of till I put the needle into motion. If you’ve been blissfully ignoring Collective’s recent adventures in to obscuredom then just buy this one. Just the one. And maybe you’ll see why we’ve gone so weird. Its because bands like Broccoli are simply too good to ignore for the sole fact that they don’t make CD singles that you can buy in HMV.