Welcome back to Bandcamp Buried Treasure! I'm getting tired of switching between progressive metal and super heavy stuff, so how about we take a look at a different sound all together this week? I'm interested to see the reactions to this one as well, so go forth and fill the comments section once you're done listening! Anyway, you know the rules of the article by now:
- I hunt down awesome artists on Bandcamp that have their album up for Buy It Now/Free Download and give them a write up. I'm not explicitly telling you to download the album for free since I'm a big supporter of buying your music, but I like the option for my readership to be there.
- The goal is to introduce you to smaller bands or obscure side-projects you might not have heard of. Anything to expand your musical horizons by just a little bit each week!
- And of course, for there to be a conversation about similar bands or bands you think I should be covering. I check the comments section!
Like I've been saying, I switched the format up a bit with two new sections, titled "The Basic Idea" and "Why I Love It." The former is a short news-style lede that paints a vivid picture of what you're about to hear to get you interested and help you understand a little why I chose the record, while the latter serves simply as a review piece.
Break out the cheesy horror flicks, because it's time for BRAAAAINS!! Rather, Brains.
The Basic Idea
If bands like Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats and Year of the Goat concentrated a little less on the Satanic and a little more on slasher flicks and zombies, threw in some Rush and Ozzy and turned the gain down even further, then you'd have Brains.
Why I Love It
Black Sabbath worship and general doom throwbacks are cropping up in the metal world by the dozen, and I'd go as far as saying 90-percent of them are completely interchangeable and downright boring. Pick up guitar, throw fuzz on said guitar and play pentatonic riffs until your fucking ears bleed- it's not rocket science. It sounds like Brains took that idea and gave it some serious thought on how to make it better, which apparently was a great brainstorming because it worked so damn well.
Alchemy is the bastard child of Black Sabbath that got thrown in with a little surf music and watched too many horror flicks. It's 70's pop rock with a gloomy edge that almost comes off comical in that it's just too damn good. It's tough to call this metal, but in this day and age we're talking about bands like Ghost alongside bands like Skeletonwitch, so with those lines blurred why not take it a step further? Why not throw in the blatant psychedelic doom metal into that category? In the strictest usage of the term "heavy," Brains don't fit at all… but that term has been stretched, contorted and seems to be in more of a state of flux now than ever before. Why not Brains?
Listen, Brains is what you're looking for when it comes to hard rock with a hook, when it comes to surf music with a tab of acid on its tongue and when it comes to straddling the line between banging your head and dancing with someone.
Brains is fucking badass.
