Among Brothers – Homes EP

Following a band’s growth is a really interesting and exciting process. Seeing them move from playing a show to a small room of people, to following the progress of them recording their first batch of songs, to them putting out their first official release. It gives you a personal insight into the band and the sounds they construct, but as well as sometimes making you feel a bit stalker-ish, it can also give you a strange and undue sense of pride and ownership when their first release is put out and received positively, as if you contributed somehow.

Of course I didn’t at all contribute to Among Brothers' music. I’m not in the band. I wasn’t in the recording studio. I didn’t oversee the mastering. The band haven’t even gone anywhere near as far along their musical lives or reached the heights of their popularity as they are likely to go, yet debut EP Homes is something I almost feel some kind of parental pride towards.

It’s a powerful and awe inspiring blend of mainly electro-tinged post-rock and folk from the Cardiff six-piece – songs drive with harmonic chants and electronic bass beats and clicks; swoop with the cries of violin, and build again with layers of guitars, drum clicks, bass and synth. Alex’s vocals, although slightly hinging on emo which is something I wouldn’t usually be fond of, have a wonderfully delicate yet powerful feel both drawing you in and blowing you away.

As eluded to, it’s probably not the best release they will ever put out, but that’s a statement of my confidence in them as a band rather than a criticism of this release. Impressive.

EP Homes officially released January 24, through Barely Regal Records.
[MySpace] [bandcamp]

Among Brothers - Montgolfier