When you go to record an album, you must look at your strengths and decide what would best represent your sound and music. The Philadelphia band The Brakes decided that for their Hyena Records debut, they would take the unusual step of recording the album live in concert. The album that resulted from live recording is entitled “Tale of Two Cities”.

The Brakes is a rock band that is made up of five multi-talented musicians. The band is comprised of: singer-songwriter Zach Djanikian, who also contributes bass, acoustic guitar, and tenor saxophone; Matt Kass, who contributes guitar and bass; Derek Feinberg, who contributes guitar, bass and vocals; Adam Flicker, who contributes keyboards, trumpet and vocals; and Josh Sack, who plays drums for the group.
Although it might seem unusual to have a band record their first album live, The Brakes have the talent to do it. And with the album being live, the listener gets a good idea of what to expect when actually seeing the band live in concert.

“Tale of Two Cities,” the new album from The Brakes, is just that: an audio record of the time the band spent recording in two locations, Milkboy, a neighborhood listening room in Ardmore, PA, and The Knitting Factory, a concert club in New York City. Having spent a month in residence at the two clubs, The Brakes gave one concert a week at both locations and recorded each show. When the month-long residences were up, The Brakes went into the studio to collect “the best of the best” of the performances and ultimately came up with tracks that were assembled to create “Tale of Two Cities”.

“Tale of Two Cities” is what a rock album should be: a true representation of the talents of the band that made the album. The songs on the album vary in style and keep the listener wanting more, wanting to hear what else the band can do. “Big Money” shows how the band can jam, as the song is a great blues-flavored rock song; “Supermarket” is a great rock song that helps to show that band can really get down; and “Empty House” shows that the members of the band have a command of their instruments as they let the easy-paced song play out. These and the other nine songs contained on the album combine to make an enjoyable listening experience.

If you are looking for a good rock album by some talented musicians, The Brakes’ “Tale of Two Cities” is an album you should really check out.
To check out The Brakes and their music, go to http://www.myspace.com/thebrakes.

Matheson Kamin

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 am and is filed under Reviews & Suggestions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.