The going rate to get into a Brakes concert-- Stateside anyhow, where they're known as BrakesBrakesBrakes-- is within a coupla bucks of what you might pay for the Brighton foursome's new live set, Rock Is Dodelijk. In an era when everything's preserved for posterity within a few minutes of it happening, the live album seems a particularly antiquated artifact, despite the prevalence of the things in the marketplace (this is, after all, not the only live record Pitchfork is reviewing today). Rock in Dodelijk, however, avoids a lot of what makes the live album seem superfluous, thanks to the band's breathless, ripchord performance and the set's searing up-front sound.
Dodelijk blasts off with the snidely whiplash of "Hi How Are You?", that great bite-sized kiss off from the band's 2005 debut, Give Blood. It's a perfect attention-grabber, and Brakes knock out all its right angles with aplomb. Brakes trade in the kind of zippy, word-forward, world-weary Britrock of Arctic Monkeys or Art Brut, almost unfailingly sarcastic, as much about inflection as the words spewing from singer Eamon Hamilton's mouth. As such, a live album's a trickier proposition for Brakes than most, as the post-punky precision of the music and all that shit Hamilton talks have to fall in line just so for the whole thing to work. But Brakes have that covered-- they sound beefier here than on record, with some of the nervous energy from the studio converted into pure heft onstage. Lead guitarist Tom White, in particular, lets loose with some billowy solos given far more room to unfurl in front of the audience. As they slide from one tune to another, hardly a scrap of banter or even a few seconds' respite to be had, Brakes' blinders-on, frills-free rock feels taut, terse, and immediate; Dodelijk might be culled from a couple of different shows, each at least six months old, but it sounds a lot more like last night's PA mix still rattling around in your head. Kudos to producers Paul Savage and Ric Peet, who, by minimizing crowd noise and pushing Hamilton way up front, lend this thing a real immediacy.
The setlist largely sticks to tunes from their first and still best album, Give Blood, and it's here we find our highlights: silly little country ditty "NY Pie", name-drop nose-turner "Heard About Your Band", single-that-wasn't "What's in It For Me?" As with their studio sets, punky thrashabouts sit comfortably next to twangy tear-in-my-many-beers ditties. The already apparent holes in some of the Brakes' tunes, which at their worst can seem little more than a stutter from Hamilton and a steady scrape from the band, do pop up occasionally; then again, they rarely overstay their welcome, as Dodelijk sneaks 20 tunes into just shy of 45 minutes, and in a way even help the good stuff kick harder in contrast.
