Brier Rose: Brier Rose

By A. Chow

With the wintery long weekend coming to a close, I end it on a bittersweet note, feeling my insides coming undone. I’ve spent the past four days immersing myself, if not drowning, in the depths of sorrow, love and despair. Brier Rose, a tiny four-piece band from Seattle has reemerged on my radar. My editor had passed on their disc to me ages ago, but as it often does, life begins to pass you by and sometimes, things get buried under responsibility, heartache and the yearning for change. Taking the long weekend to heart, I decided to clean up my life. And while sweeping all the bugs under the rug, I stumbled upon the small manila envelope with our address hastily scrawled in black sharpie across the front. What greeted me was both delightful and painful.

Red Cup Party sets the tone of the album, dramatic and full of longing. It quickly becomes apparent that Brier Rose has a penchant for the emotionally raw. Reminiscent of an early Muse, the self-titled EP blends passionate guitar solos, emphatic pauses and gruff vocals to make for a soundtrack to the lonely expatriates of the world. Appearing early into the album, the somewhat disjointed track, and fittingly titled, Decision Making sums up the album with its Rockband worthy guitar solo and the epic nature of Radiohead’s happy mistake, Paranoid Android.

With gothic undertones, the EP is surprisingly strong from a four piece band that does its own marketing and PR. Rare is it that a band of this caliber goes along with little notice. Be Kind, Rewind, one of the band's favourite tracks, is laced with a catchy guitar hook, tongue and cheek lyrics and a haunting melody.

Haunting is actually an accurate description of the album. Tracks are littered with beautiful soulful harmonies but lacks in lyrical maturity. As captivating and emotive as the musical component is, the lyrics are somewhat distracting, and I hate to say it, but sometimes nonsensical. The emotional honesty in their poetry suffers from simply trying too hard. Too hard to be ambiguous and thoughtful all at the same time.

However, passion, is something that Brier Rose far from lacks. It’s so emotionally raw that I found it even necessary to step away momentarily. It can get rather bleak, simply put. But the heavy tone is both admirable and borderline emo minus the black nailpolish image. It does however pick up a little past the halfway mark with My Always, ironically romantic among songs celebrating open wounds and heartbreak.

The Seattle quartet has definitely landed on our “ones to watch” list and with a strong footing in their musical identity Brier Rose is more than halfway there to discovering their genius. With a little more time these guys will soon be putting out records with cult status. And we want to be there when it happens. With open wounds and all.

Available on cdbaby.com