The Brakes' Tale of Two Cities
A monument to calmly neurotic pop excellence
By Edd Hurt
Tuesday, May 13th 2008
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Tale of Two Cities
Hyena
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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.
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