Album Reviews

Band: Our Brother The Native Album: Tooth & Claw Label: Fatcat Release Date: Out Now Format: CD

There was a time when the Arctic Monkeys' fame was initially fashioned from the powers of Myspace - without the need of a label. Then many many bands recognised this and the myspace went 'boom!', with some bands being signed just by their myspace demos.

This was also the case with Our Brother The Native, the 3 piece (Chaz Knapp, John Michael Foss & Josh Bertram) from the US. Except this album was constructed by sending different 'layers' of the tracks over email, then putting it together. They didn't actually meet as a band until their first gig with FatCat in Belgium.

Echoes of Animal Collective come to mind, which is possibly a reason why FatCat chose them. They're 16/18 year olds blending experimental analogue sounds with skewed folk melodies and broken kids toys into a beautiful mix. Piano's, cracked electronics, static vocals, bird noises - there's a heck of a load of found sounds used in the 12 tracks just thrown together in a plain beautiful way. With the additional helping of vocals from Bertrams mum, and violins from their friend 'Kayleen Nilson'.

Tooth & Claw makes for a fantastic debut (growing in greatness with each listen), with an entirely original recording process. Good times can only come for these three young talents.