Broken Records, Delusions of Grandeur
by Mike Conklin
Let Me Come Home
4AD
In the press materials accompanying Let Me Come Home, the second full-length from Scottish indie-rock band Broken Records, there's a quote, attributed to some unspecified member of the band, that goes like this: "We're trying to do something different. People forget that music doesn't have to be just bass, guitar and drums. It can be just as loud and exciting with glockenspiel and trumpet." This is stupid, of course: people don't really forget that at all, and they haven't for years. From Okkervil River to the Decemberists to Sufjan Stevens, there's been no shortage of indie rock bands, and really high profile ones at that, proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that you can turn a lot of heads with instruments not typically associated with rock and roll. If you remember, a little Canadian band called Arcade Fire even had a number one record doing the very same thing just last year. From the sound of Let Me Come Home, Broken Records remember quite clearly.
They're definitely after the high-drama and constant promise of catharsis that have endeared Arcade Fire to so many people, and every now and then, as on "A Leaving Song" or "You Know You're Not Dead", they achieve it. But they also spend a lot of time lumbering through characterless, mid-tempo alt-rock that sounds hopelessly indebted to some off-putting combination of Kings of Leon and The Killers. There's a really likable, expertly rendered world-weariness that pops up here and there, on tracks like "Dia dos Namorados!," and it's sad proof that they've missed the mark on the whole by concerning themselves with the pursuit of "loud and exciting" at all.
