Brainworms Swear to Me

Brainworms 'Swear to Me' (Rorschach Records, 2009)

I've tried to listen to this record on three occasions and I just cannot get my head round it, mainly because I find the vocals so unlistenable. Greg Butler looks pretty cool; like a homeless mixture of Henry from Army of Flying Robots and Turner, original singer with Unique Freak, but his vocal style is just relentlessly spitting out lyrics in a grating mid-range that is neither melodic nor brutal. It may sound strange but Butler reminds me a bit of Jello Biafra, maybe he's a bit of a 'Marmite' singer?

The music is reminiscent of a few bands I saw in the early 2000s who seemed to think they were playing melodic hardcore, but they just sounded like badly out of tune Dischord records played at the wrong speed.

My favourite track is 'A Vulgar Display of Flowers'; it's got a funny title, it's an instrumental and it's about 30 seconds long.

I will have to stop buying records when I'm drunk just because I think the band have nice beards.

Peace