Turin Brakes Album: “Ether Song”

If you are an American, as I am, you are as probably as lost in the post-grunge (RIP) post nu-metal (Thank God!) hip-hop/sleaze pop music world as I was when I first came upon these pages.

I had heard some Coldplay, liked it. Bought their two albums and loved it. I then listened to some old Radiohead albums that I had somehow missed along the way. Listening to them gave me some heart that beautiful and meaningful rock music had not been lost, just harder to find.

It's a bit of a shame that English bands aren't getting the airplay over here that they once did. That being said, their albums are available for purchase!

Turin Brakes makes some wonderful music, and this album is very good. The songs seem to stay with me all day, and even though I have listened to them many times, they don't seem to get old because there is enough "meat" to them both sonicly and lyricly to pour over for quite some time.

If you like Coldplay, Starsailor and Radiohead, you will like Turin Brakes. If you have read this whole review and have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, do yourself a favor and grab one of these albums for a listen.

Turin Brakes sometimes reminds me of Howie Day, in vocal deliveries, Starsailor as well, Coldplay, Jeff Buckley, and snippets of the Verve and Tinker's Punishment. But, the album still stands totally on its own, remeniscent of other musicians (to me) but still different and not boring and not just like the rest. you can hear passion in this cd, particularly the second song, and i think it is nine that has the piano that is hot. buy it.

Turin Brakes second album fulfills the expectations that only some of their songs on their first album, The Optimist, were able to engender in me. I found their first effort, while salted with some extremely catchy, strong songs, to be a little on the meandering side. Their second release is a complete delight. But as for the reviewer who felt it necessary to put down Coldplay in order to praise Turin Brakes, I highly reccommend that band's second album as well, which is an equally strong display of previously suggested talent. If Coldplay is too popular for you to feel comfortable liking, then Turin Brakes is a good band to focus your attention on. However, if your brain is big enough to handle liking things regardless of their level of popularity, do yourself a favor and buy both Turin Brakes' Ether Song *and* Coldplay's Rush of Blood to the Head, and settle back for a couple hours of great listening.

After randomly picking up this album in a Cambridge record store, I was pleasantly surprised to recognize this band from a cut off their first album, "Underdog (Save Me)." The appealing melody that first made me get that song stuck in my head (in a good way) are just as present on this second release. Laid-back acoustics give way to sparse poetry and an still under-packaged subtlety that had me listening over and over. Their sound is consistent, with new attempts at adding some studio beats to refreshingly rock-solid musicianship. "Self Help" and "Little Brother" may not be the released singles, but the (once again) more subtle lyrics Turin Brakes occasionally hits on begin to tell their own stories in these tracks. Much of the album is keenly atmospheric, while listening to moodier tracks like "Full of Stars" just makes you want to sing along--if only to join in the soulfulness this artistic duo brings to their latest work.

Turin Brakes will be the band the everyone said they were listening to 2002, when they finally find their audience in 2004 or 2005. Sad fact is that Turin is in the basement of the U.S. charts, but no band this good will go unnoticed forever. If you like what critics are calling "2nd Wave Brit Pop" you will adore this band. If you think this is only the 2nd wave of Brit pop, I suggest you buy "Meet the Beatles", and discover that Turin Brakes are actually somewhere around the 23rd Wave Brit Pop.