Brandtson

Having already exceeded the shelf-life of the average indie rock band by a few years, a series of tours, and a handful of albums, Brandtson could have used the departure of original bassist John Sayre as their moment to shake hands, congratulate each other on a race well run, and ride off into the Cleveland sunset with their reputation and legacy intact. But just as a brush with death can cause some people to live their lives with a newfound purpose, Brandtson found a new bassist, regrouped, and agreed to shake off all of the trappings of comfort and complacency that can cripple a band that has been writing songs together for eight years, creating their boldest, most immediate, and most dynamic album in the process. Welcome to Brandtson’s second act.

A song cycle built on the idea of confronting agents of manipulation – from media, from social pressure, from personal fears and insecurities – Hello, Control is a statement of liberation and experimentation. “On my end of things, songwriting has always been about coming up with interesting guitar parts and trying to piece a song together around it,” says guitarist Matt Traxler, recalling a barroom band meeting that yielded the new direction for the band’s eighth album. “The first thing that pulled me away from that mindset was “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones. I was just listening to it, and there is nothing going on in the song. There’s the sitar part that’s really simple, drums, bass, guitars, whatever – everything is just an afterthought, and it’s the vocal melody that sucks you in. As I was explaining that, the Violent Femmes’ song “Gone Daddy Gone” came on the jukebox, and it’s a similar thing, where it’s just xylophone and the other instrumentation is on the backburner and the real hook is the vocal melody. I think we all realized that was something that we paid too little attention to in the past.”

With the addition of bassist/electronic auteur Adam Boose (formerly of Cleveland synth standouts Furnace St.), Brandtson not only subverts the formula of past releases but obliterates it entirely. “Bringing Adam into the mix, and him being from a background of electronic music really helped with that,” says guitarist/vocalist Myk Porter, pulling no punches when describing the band’s eagerness to break down the previous strictures of their sound. “Before Adam joined the band, we were the same four guys for eight years, and you definitely get locked into a formula working with the same people for so long. The fact that a lot of the writing on this record was done in front of a laptop instead of in a room with four guys with guitars, you have a melody in your head and instead of plucking it out on a guitar you thump it out on a Moog, and that can put a new spin on things.”

Sharpening their pointed pop hooks on Boose’s mastery of electronic programming, the band veers from mewing guitar lines and pulsing dance-rock hook of the apocalyptic “Earthquake & Sharks” to the twitchy shout-along anthem “Denim Iniquity” and the computerized croon of “Nobody Dances Anymore.” Arrangements are simplified to reinforce the primacy of the melody, with the previously cutting and slashing guitars now churning and twitching, with Jared Jolley’s complex rhythms forming complex patterns around Boose’s electronic blips and bloops. Add it up, and it’s a beguilingly original work, a sonic tableau where New Order and Depeche Mode wander onto the dance floor before being pushed to the sidelines by the sound of Franz Ferdinand bumping heads with Kraftwerk.

Both a reintroduction and a statement of intent, Hello, Control is a moment of rebirth caught on record, a band reinventing themselves, reinvigorating their sound, and reaffirming the power of rock and roll. This is the sound of a band losing and finding themselves all at the same time. Brandtson is very much alive.

Cleveland emo quartet Brandtson was originally comprised of singer/guitarist Myk Porter, guitarist Matt Traxler, bassist John Sayre, and singer/drummer Jared Jolley. After appearing on Steadfast Records' Radiowaves and Gibberish various-artists compilation in 1997, the group signed with Deep Elm, contributing to the label samplers Records for the Working Class and A Million Miles Away: Emo Diaries, Vol. 2 before closing out 1998 with their debut full-length, Letterbox. The second Brandtson LP, Fallen Star Collection, followed in 1999 and the band's pop-tinged indie rock continued with Trying to Figure Each Other Out, released a year later. The EP Death and Taxes was issued in January 2002, before the aggressive full-length Dial in Sounds appeared that summer, offering more harmonies and stronger melodies than previous efforts. A split with Camber and Seven Storey Mountain was also released in 2002.

With their Deep Elm contract up, Brandtson signed with The Militia Group in 2004. Teaming up with producer Ed Rose for the fourth time, their label debut, Send Us a Signal, offered even more of the band's trademark melodic power pop and rock. Sayre decided to part ways with the group in July 2005, and he was soon replaced on bass by another Clevelander, Adam Boose, who had been fronting the local synth rock band Furnace St. Starting work on album number five after their first lineup change in almost a decade, Brandtson looked to reinvigorate their sound, approaching the writing process from a different angle and embracing Boose's background in electronic music. The resulting experimental and dance-ready Hello, Control appeared next in May 2006. ~ Jason Ankeny & Corey Apar, All Music Guide