Broken Records - A Darkness Rises Up

The new single from Scottish 4AD act Broken Records, opens sounding almost exactly like Phoenix’s catchier-than-syphilis hit ‘Listomania’. A pretty good way to ingratiate yourself with this listener from the off. From there though, it descends into the kind of hollow grandeur that Snow Patrol might come up with if they were forced to listen to nothing but Arcade Fire’s ‘Funeral’ for months on end.

The real problem here is the fact that the song is simply not strong enough to support the sheer volume of strings, pianos and strained vocals employed to lend the song a little gravitas but which simply drag it down. One can’t help but feel that the band would benefit from stripping back the layers and shearing away some of the superfluous instrumentation in order to focus on the song itself rather than try to elevate below par efforts to the status of epics as they try, and fail, to do here.