Broken Family Band

Any one for "14 tracks of spite, bitterness and empty-hearted loathing"? That’s how The Broken Family band describe their new album "Hello Love."

Fortunately there’s a lot more to the band and their music than their tongue in cheek critique implies.

What you get is a band from Cambridge using Alt Country and Folk tricks mixed with American guitar bands and clever lyrics that understand the rules of Pop. They’re working in different fields but, like The Beta Band, you also get a sense that the unexpected is just around the corner.

They’ve also managed to do this while still holding down day jobs, working tours around annual leave. In a really entertaining piece in the Guardian recently singer Steven Adams made an excellent case for it.

He’d played in struggling bands for years, spending the days watching TV in his pants, before concluding "It's pretty easy to be in a band and have a job.

"You go to work in the daytime and you play shows in the evenings and on weekends. If we all agreed to take a pay cut (from our existing salaries) and to "do" the Broken Family Band full time for a year, we would require a one-off tax-free payment of £250,000. That's twenty-five grand each, per year, for two years (one year to "do" the band, one year to sit on our arses moaning about how we could have made it, and £50,000 for the pot). Anyone want to offer that? We have assumed not, so doing it this way makes sense to us. Two of our number have mortgages, one has a family to support, and one has an expensive trainer habit. So we've kept our jobs"

Giving up the day job or signing off is one of the foundations of the Rock n Roll world but think of the possibilities if you had to keep your old job, even after you’d cracked it as Rock ‘n’ Roll fabulous.

There’s the very real risk of being taught by Sting, being sold an ice cream by The Stranglers Jet Black or getting your hair cut by Kevin Rowland or Charlie Harper. Keanu Reeves would have to struggle on as a struggling actor.

And what about Bez? Forever cursed to wander the twilight between the worlds of work and Rock n Roll as one of the maraca shaking Undead.

Broken Family Band's current album "Hello Love" opens with "Leaps". It’s a saucy coupling of The Violent Femmes and Magic Numbers. It could be the most blatant celebration of afternoon delight since....Afternoon Delight.

"I love the way that it hides and it leaps out at you and it leaps out at me in the afternoon". The song fades out on a fuzz of discordant guitar, just before falling asleep with the afternoons intended tasks still undone.

The single "Love Your Man Love Your Woman" manages to get that deep ringing sound, like the bom bom bom rhythm of Mr Blue Sky, with the guitar, bass and drums hammering out the same note.

It’s a Grinderman type bastard blues howl and as Steve Adams sings "You need trees and flowers and someone to hold you when you want to be held" his vocals make the change, but the relentless (Nick) Caveman hammering behind him doesn’t follow the progression.

Eventually they do and use up those final 2 chords. Oooh, but they make you wait. It’s primitive and clever and there’s a scouring guitar solo that could contribute to coastal erosion.

Steven Adams vocals have a reedy Gram Parsons twang (obviously that’s a good thing) on "So Many Lovers" while on "Don’t Change Your Mind" he offers practical advice "You can’t always sleep naked knowing you have to run for the bathroom."

Well you’ve either got to wear PJ’s or else it’s cup and run. Might be one for the message boards.

My favourite track though is the wistful and jauntily sour "Give And Take" - "I’m sure she’s found a person/ to give her some attention/ and if I ever do meet him/there are things that I should mention/She will take your heart and crush it/and maybe you two should discuss it".

There’s an odd rhythm to the words but he fits the words round the melody so they sound absolutely right. With the female backing vocals from Jen Maro and the general guitar thrummery it feels like Leonard Cohen’s "The Partisan" meets Bill Callahan. It ends with a really effective reverbed trumpet part.

Closing track "Seven Sisters" goes from Will Oldham fragile hesitancy to a punkathon ending complete with that Johnny Greenwood (from Radiohead) style trick of squeezing needling, mosquito sounds from his guitar and Adams repeated distorted "Hello Love" bellowed refrain.

For a band whose original intention was to play a few gigs at their local and make an album they’re managed to squeeze out four full length albums and a 2 mini albums since 2002 including the impeccably titled "The King Will Build A Disco."

Their website is a treat www.brokenfamilyband.com because it actually captures something of the spirit of the band, sarky and funny and with an awareness of how they fit in (or don’t).

Triumphant gigs are described as "Smashed it" and I’m sorry to have missed two of their gigs in 2002.

"We were inappropriate but ultimately victorious at St. Luke's Primary School PTA Barbeque. It was great. Brian Penny's 59th birthday party was excellent, especially the hot pies, campsite, disco, bar area and eyebrows. Our happy future as a function band is secure"