Blood Brothers: Original sins

Blood Brothers enjoy their life of Crimes

By Mike Prevatt

When you name your album Crimes, it begs the question who the criminals are. Given that the album--released in fall of 2004--belongs to sociopolitical-minded post-hardcore act the Blood Brothers, the possibilities are endless. But, as it turns out, the primary reason for the title is its brevity.

"All of our previous records have very lengthy record titles," says vocalist/keyboardist Johnny Whitney. "We wanted to pick a word was very succinct and very broad and sort of ambiguous, but at the same time sounded kind of sinister."

That rationale sounds a little suspicious, in the same way it was tough to swallow Thom Yorke's insistence that Radiohead's Hail to the Thief wasn't referring to our president, but something more abstract. Yet in the Blood Brothers' case, such an unspecific album title does serve its overall lambasting of various institutions of power and influence.

"There are a lot of lyrics on the record that have pretty very varied political commentary," says Whitney. "So, if you want to assign a particular, I don't know, criminal, per se...you could say those in power, or those who control the media, or those who control the existing social order in the country. But we never try and make things that direct in our lyrics."

Indeed, little is spelled out in the Blood Brothers' modest canon, but its rebellious, nihilistic and uncompromising aesthetic is unmistakable. It's why the band rose quickly in the punk underground with its first two albums, 2000's This Adultery is Ripe and 2001's March On Electric Children, and it's also why its profile was raised considerably upon the release of 2003's acclaimed, Ross Robinson-produced Burn Piano Island, Burn.

Now that post-election fatigue has set in, Crimes, the band's first album on the BMG-distributed V2 imprint, comes at just the right time for those dejected by last year's election and the current evangelical zeitgeist. Songs like "Peacock Skeleton With Crooked Feathers" and "Teen Heat," for instance, evoke religious imagery, to reflect the greater evils of a manipulated society.

However, Crimes was a much different undertaking than its predecessor. They got to make the album at home, as opposed to Los Angeles where they all shared business-class condominiums, and after three albums and years of touring, they were all more comfortable writing and playing music with one other. With Burn, the quintet was still adjusting to the full-time, big-label gig.

"That put a lot of pressure on us in that when people are rallying around you, giving you money, buying your equipment and giving you all these really awesome opportunities to record, it kind of fucks with your head a little bit--at least it did for me," says Whitney. "In retrospect, I don't really feel like I was writing lyrics and [doing] what I do in the band in the most honest way. There was a lot of baggage."

Also influencing Crimes was a new producer, John Goodmanson, who had worked on records members of the band had grown up on; trying to accommodate two vocalists (Whitney and Jordan Blilie) without cramming the songs with layers of harmonies; and writing shorter songs that the band would actually want to perform. "The songs on Burn, a lot of them were really, really long--relentlessly long," says Whitney. "So when we were started writing Crimes, that was one of the objectives--to write a good portion of songs that were no longer than three minutes and fun to play, and harness the spirit of our earlier material in that sense."

Which means the Blood Brothers might have another shot at radio--some stations are playing "Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck"--but it's not something the band is necessarily pining for. "I can't imagine us ever being a band that's big on the radio," says Whitney. "At the same time, I couldn't imagine Modest Mouse would be, and they are now. The format of alternative radio has totally changed over two years. It's not something we're actively pursuing. But if it happens, that would be cool, too."