I don’t really listen to mainstream radio that much. The time I spend in the car mostly finds me listening to podcasts – Coverville is always a favorite, as is NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! – but on a recent trip to visit friends in Virginia, I took advantage of the seven hour drive to catch up on NPR’s All Songs Considered coverage of this years South by Southwest festival
After getting through the daily recaps I started to listen to the concert podcasts – some I was into, and some just didn’t catch my ear – but then I heard the opening to “The High Road” and it was instantly both fresh and familiar. This was my introduction to Broken Bells – a collaboration between James Mercer (leader of The Shins) and Brian Burton (otherwise known as producer Danger Mouse). Some people will recall that Danger Mouse was also half of the duo behind Gnarls Barkley whose 2006 single “Crazy” was named Rolling Stone’s #1 song of the last decade.
To give you an idea of what struck me about the band, here’s a performance of “The High Road” from AOL Music’s The Interface:
Given the pedigree, it isn’t surprising that the songwriting and production of Broken Bells is both fine-tuned and accessible. What surprised me is how well the band translated live. The Shins flew under my radar so this was my first exposure to Mercer’s talent, but definitely encourages me to check out the rest of his catalog.
Standout tracks for me included the lead-off “The High Road”, as well as “Vaporize” and the falsetto driven “The Ghost Inside”. The strings and piano, and indeed the overall arrangement of “Sailing to Nowhere” was somewhat reminiscent to me of the end of Split Enz’ “Six Months in a Leaky Boat” – evocative of that maritime feel. “Mongrel Heart” took me back to the mid-80s and The Cure or Depeche Mode, further illustrating the breadth of influences on Mercer and Burton, yet they make the styles uniquely their own.
This is a band I would love to see live – the musicianship really conveys the intricacies of both the songwriting and arrangements. Alas, there are no dates currently scheduled for Philadelphia, but they’re slated to play New York (June 5 @ The Fillmore at Irving Plaza) and Washington, DC (June 7 @ The 9:30 Club).
If you like what you’ve read or heard, check out more from the band at Amazon: