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Album review: BRKN LOVE – The Program
Toronto trio BRKN LOVE get with The Program, a sassy if somewhat repetitive third album of richly tuneful alternative rock.
- Words:
- Steve Beebee
If you exercise, safely but relentlessly, lifting ever heavier weights, you’re going to gain muscle mass. While BRKN LOVE still aren’t quite the world conquering goliaths they have the potential to be, everything about this third album is bigger, stronger and just generally more buff than anything they’ve done before.
Bizarrely, the exercise that made the difference for frontman Justin Benlolo – a hulk of man to start with it should be noted – was a journey to Charleston in South Carolina. Our man networked with new friends, absorbed local culture, and eventually returned to his native Canada nine weeks later with shooting star hooks and honed-to-perfection riffs buzzing in his head. The Program is the result.
That this is the best of BRKN LOVE’s three albums isn’t in doubt – each of the 12 tracks has a kind of polished stardust feel, everything more pulverising than everything else. Pulling Leeches is a fine example, its twisty, distorted guitars quickly evolving into the kind of knockout hook that British rock giants Def Leppard used to thrive on. You’ve also got the album’s bravura opener 2020 Vision, the slower but no less forceful throb of Rear View Mirror, and Wisdom Teeth’s urgent fuzz.
BRKN LOVE take tricks from Muse and Royal Blood, combining them – in theory, at least – with the sass and colour of a band like The Struts. The only thing holding them back is their tendency to repeat the same moves, ending up like a dumbed-down Don Broco, most of the songs coalescing into one whole, with few that truly reach out.
That said, the attempt to inject funk into 12 Wings and Break The Same allow flashes of Head Automatica’s dancing feet to put you on high alert, these being things the trio could have exploited to greater effect. Here then is a muscular thing of a rock album, BRKN LOVE's best to date – but it’s one you wish had gone further still.
Verdict: 3/5
For fans of: Royal Blood, Muse, Wolfmother
The Program is out now via Spinefarm