from: The Village Voice

The Brakes' Tale of Two Cities

A monument to calmly neurotic pop excellence

by Edd Hurt
May 13th, 2008

The Brakes
Tale of Two Cities
Hyena

Unlike any number of pop musicians who take refuge in formalism, the Brakes sound like they know all about the way the world can pass you by when you're looking for a love to call your own. Recorded live last year in New York and back home in Philadelphia, Tale of Two Cities gets structural with twin-guitar breaks, elegant soft-shoe piano, and funk rhythms that are jumpy and a little bookish. It's a tight, controlled, expert pop record that sounds suspiciously even-handed, as if the quintet's neuroses have been conquered all too successfully. The fancy chord changes and double-time passages convey what the arch lyrics don't, as chief songwriter Zach Djanikian croons soulfully about women he notices "standing in a hurry" in supermarket lines, along with other big-city perils.

"Supermarket" and "Big Money" make a case for these guys as harbingers of newfangled post-rock that recalls the relaxed post-boogie of such '70s bands relics as Little Feat and Orleans—you could imagine them covering "Easy to Slip" or "Still the One" with a straight face. "Big Money" rhymes death march with good heart and sports guitars that evoke the Allman Brothers and Big Star (click here to read more...).

Click here to read full review at VillageVoice.com.