Many writers, more poetic than I, have written about the enduring virtues of the family dog. Men and women (and others) of letters have extolled at length the irreplaceability of their company, the limitless nature of their loyalty, and their inexhaustible sense of duty.
What many of the great writers of the past hundred or so years have failed to acknowledge with as much care is the equal dependability of rust-belt emo to alienated and sensitive youngsters everywhere. I'm not going to get too deep into any callouts, but for all of Robert Frost's talk about the "Overdog" and the "Underdog," did he ever once have a nice thing to say about Slaughter Beach, Dog? Yeah, that's what I thought. Well I'm not like those other writers, and no offense to our canine friends, but I only talk about your real companions, like Philadelphia's Brackish.
Despite having a name that seems more deserving of a post-rock/post-sludge band, the Keystone state crew plays the kind of emo that thrives in the low-fluorescent lighting of a weekday night gig at your local VFW. I can almost hear the foam ceiling tiles lifting and shifting from the force of the band's amps while the big swing of the rattle hook ruffle "What Makes You Say" is playing, or feel the rousing force of swell of hands and elbows flowing over my back and shoulders, like a dam bursting, as a mad rush to the front occurs during the opening notes of the melancholic pinwheel "Pareidolia," flavoring the air with a salty-sweet bane. To complete the scene, a Nam vet, acting as bouncer and janitor, watches from the far side of a pool table, slowly nodding his head along with the rhythm, recalling what it was like to hear the Kinks for the first time- only what this band is singing about feels closer to his own life, remembered 50 years on after he stopped being a boy.
While most of the songs on Brackish's self-titled LP (their first) have a lot of wattage-umpf behind them, the low-key segments like "Moonville" and the swinging and acoustic "Speak to Me" have a dusky porch in June vibe to them, capturing the feeling of a backyard concert while somewhat recalling the easy-pop hooks and serious slacker prowess of groups like Piebald. Sharply struck chords mix with the summer air like sugar in lemonade, dissolving into a sweet, golden concoction that is ready to palatably delight the senses.
Much as you'd expect from an emo band worth their weight in crushed Old Style cans, the lyrics on Brackish's self-titled are incredibly personal and reflective of an unfiltered consciousness, an encounter with another's interiority that can't help but demand reflection on the part of the observer- recalling all the friends you no longer talk to and all the fights that shattered your heart with no clear cause, leaving only scars in the fabric of your memory. Your heartbeat will surge as it tries to keep pace with the outpour of emotion on the frantic fall-apart of "Frames," and you may find yourself reaching for a hand to hold while "Friends that Drive" bounces off the elastic guitar melodies it's balancing on to threaten a head-on collision only to jackknife into a slow-motion summersaults over your head.
While the subject matter of Brackish's songs is the kind of stuff that blights many young lives, the way the details are exponded upon is doused in pure pop-emo ecstasy. Brackish has an amazing sense for writing hooks and these songs are going to stick with you long after the final note has drifted past your ears and off into the night- like the howl of a dog, lonesome in the pale of the moon- hungry and waiting for a sympathetic hand to feed it and point it in the direction home. Nurtured with your attention, it could break trail for miles, leaving a swath of warm sharable feels in its wake. And if you're not here for the feels, then what are you here for? In this regard, Brackish is as dependable as a St. Bernard patroling the alps.
