Bracket - Requiem

Genre rock Publisher Takeover Records External Links Official Bracket Website Official Takeover Records Website

I saw these dudes play back in, I don't know, 1993? I was young and thought that they weren't punk because the lead singer had really long hair pulled back in a pony tail. He looked more like a footbagger than a punker. Of course this was well before I realized that there are probably only about four punks left on the entire planet and that not a single one of them has even been on the cover of Spin, Rolling Stone, or Magnet.

That shit's really getting old. Wait, not accurate, it's been old for about a decade now. What's even more annoying than eyeliner fuckfaces pouting on glossy covers is listening to underground assholes talk about how all the stuff that they call punk on the radio isn't punk, true punk is about being yourself and on and on. Give me a glass of warm milk, will you? You know what's really punk? The little brown sticks they give you at the firework stand to light all your fuses.

Now that that's been put to bed, we can move on. Bracket hasn't changed much since 1993 (or whenever). The lead singer, Marty, still has long hair, though it looks like these days he's wearing it under a baseball cap. The music is still power pop, though for Requiem the dudes have swallowed a horse pill of Beach Boys. Lots of harmonization. This is nice, and if you're a fan of vocal layering, well executed. The fast songs are punchy, the slow songs are sappy. Even though I'm not as much of a fan of this type of music as I was 13 years ago, I respect the fact that Bracket hasn't tried to cash in by adopting a flamboyant image. Mark my words, in another two decades people are going to look at bands like My Chemical Romance the way we look at Liberace now.

Bracket keeps it real like Weird Al. Have you noticed how in the nearly thirty years that he's been doing what he does best he hasn't changed a single fucking thing? Still with the checkered Vans slip-ons, the black slacks, the Hawaiian shirts, the perm and the yoga. I'll have to rescind my earlier comment about what is punk, or at the very least widen it to include Weird Al. Weird Al does his own thing like no one else.

By the way, I've listened to this CD five times and I still don't know who the fuck Warren is. I've been forced to assume they're singing about the retarded brother character from There's Something About Mary. Maybe, just maybe, this album is what he was always listening to on his walkman.