Customer Reviews

Bromst

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I think I've found the soundtrack to my summer. I hardly listen to any music that ventures this far into electronica, but I might if more of it were this well composed. It's not a perfectly consistent album though - "Surprise Stefani" and "Get Older" don't do much for me, and "Baltihorse" would be much better with a big anthemic group vocal, or even as a purely instrumental song...anything but those "chipmunk" vocals!

But at its best (Build Voice, Wet Wings, Woof Woof, Slow with Horns), it's nearly as brilliant as any of the music I love. In fact, in its finest moments, I'm reminded of one of my favorite bands, Sigur Ros. Not in style, obviously, but in the grandeur and complexity of the music.

Maybe not quite a classic, but still a really, really great album to listen to in the car on a bright summer day.

An album which has a way of making you want more- even with the somewhat intense, long lasting layers upon layers of busyness, that paints a J. Pollock on almost every track. You may find it hard to listen to all of the way through, but once you do, it changes from busy to beautiful. I associate some parts of Deacon's album with a reminiscence of kraut styled lengthiness and repetitive beats/noises. Keeping that in mind, Bromst is way more advanced; though the elements are indeed sometimes there. The album is altogether something that sounds--- new!! ...very interesting. very unique. and all without losing replay value. Terrific album by Dan Deacon.

Listen to a sample before purchasing. It can be a bit much for someone who is only slightly into borderline obscure organized chaos. ...and oh yeah, I've heard the live shows are interactive and extraordinarily fun. bonus!!

This album is simply an incredible achievement. The sounds, beats,and textures all combine seamlessly into
a swirling landscape of music. To try and put this album into a specific genre would be doing it an injustice.
It defies genre and in some ways creates it's own.

This album has it all. Some songs got me up dancing, some transported me to the sounds of a Jungle, while others
left me almost speechless.

Assuming you aren't looking for a country western or classical music album, this masterpiece should sound great
to anyone who simply appreciates good music. If your definition of good music is "whatever the radio is playing," this will go right over your head.

However, for those with a diverse taste in music, do yourself a favor and buy this album.
It gets better with every listen.

Bromst is my first exposure to Dan. I've attended several shows over the past couple years, but have either been a bit too inebriated or too busy dancing to place any attention elsewhere. To be honest I did not expect to love this album. Upon first listen the initial hybrid I instinctively conjured was of Japanther and Polyphonic Spree. There is an element that aims to forcibly re-affirm your place in the world, but not in a lets all hold hands and lay in the flowers kind of way. Dan does it his way and he does it well. Songs are extremely well composed and from the beginning of each track you feel as though it will evolve into something incredible (and you can rarely guess how).

A friend of mine gave me a copy of this album for christmas and I have been unable to pull it out of my rotation. Deacon blends electronic beats with trippy, vaguely indie-flavored vocal samples and what sounds like small toy pianos for children and comes up with something infectiously listenable, if that makes any sense. I had no idea what to expect when I first listened to the album, and it remains fresh even after repeated listens due to the varied sonic textures of the songs.

There are a couple of curious choices that dull the album enough to knock off a star, including odd chipmunk vocals and one track that totally flops for me: Wet Wings. I get what he was going for with the repeated vocal being mashed over itself over and over, but frankly, it sounds like something that belongs on a noise album and is out of place here. If he'd put in any sort of backing track, or really added anything actively musical into the track, it would probably have been much better.

All said, an excellent album and well worth listening if you're into indie or electronic music.

To me this is a break through piece of work. stradeling the rift between electronica and something much more organic the music Deacon produces stakes out new ground in a swirling shifting landscape. moving from delicate to overwrought it could serve as a soundtrack to our generation of ADHD. on par with Animal Collective the songs on this release feed those hungry for everything all at once.

I heard of Dan Deacon when Spiderman of the Rings came out and I enjoyed that album for a while, but wasn't completely blown away by it. I later downloaded his earlier stuff and it failed to impress after SOTR, so i wasn't really planning on buying this one.

That could have been the biggest mistake of my life.

This album is unlike any other song/album that I have ever heard. It is so beautiful and perfect that it can't have been "made" at all, but brought down to us from somewhere out there. I feel lucky to be alive at this time when Bromst was first presented to humanity. The album is almost unclassifiable. It feels like it fits comfortably in between every genre and can ably please everyone's musical taste. Every voice/instrument/beat/note/sound/song sounds perfect and at the perfect time. This is the most satisfying music I have ever heard. Listening to just a few seconds makes me feel excited to be alive.

The world is a better place because of this album. This is for sure one of the greatest achievements of our time.

I ordered the vinyl after sampling some tracks online. I am glad I made the jump and ordered this album! I was surprised to find a digital download card inside. Gave a code and a website to download the digital version :D Beats hooking up my record player to my laptop and spending a lot of time recording ;) I love the vinyl sound, and i like being able to listen to this in my car too! I'm not enough of a sound nerd to compare the sound waves of the vinyl and downloaded version, but I think I might need a newer needle lol. (record player's from the 90's :) The "chipmunk" voices are interesting, and add yet another layer to the complex sound/s of the entire record. Red F had me thinking my stereo was broke till the drums came in. Great record, but I would recommend listening to some before buying! Wasn't a mistake for me, but to some it might just sound like a bunch of noise.

Well this is just a masterpiece. And no I am not saying that lightly but boy oh boy does this fellow have full control over this peppy electronic orgy of sound. Very unlike anything I've ever heard, and one of the few artists I care to see in concert (that is, would make the trip just to see them play.)

There's a scene in director Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 sci-fi thriller, Children of Men, where music plays a key role in the film's secondary agenda - forecasting the future. Foul blasts of broken robot noise spill from the screen as actor Michael Caine dances a jig we've never seen. It's a noble effort by Cuaron, Caine and whoever programmed up the awful sounds, but let's leave the musical predictions to the musicians. Dan Deacon's second album to see major distribution, Bromst, whether it means to or not, does a better job at predicting the future of pop music.

Beginning with a hushed ambiance that slowly builds into what functions as an introduction, Bromst gives the listener a final moment of peace before the aptly-titled opener, "Build Voice," really revs up. An arrangement of vocal loops, piano, digital beats, horns and rolling keyboards create a song that feels more like a rethinking of classical composition than it does electro-pop. No real strings being stroked with bows; plenty of programming and loops. The song, like most of Deacon's material, would fit well if played between cuts from LCD Soundsystem and the Animal Collective - good company. The general vibe here is electronic pop, though maybe the most anything-goes version of said genre you'll find in the U.S. It's a somewhat brutal sound, just as the music in Children of Men was.

While 2007's Spiderman of the Rings, Deacon's first major release, was maybe a tad too silly to be taken as the grand artistic statement it was so often written up to be, Bromst settles back a bit, expanding on Spiderman's style while tightening the screws. Each song, including the record's shortest composition - the three-minute "Wet Wings" - here feels epic, almost exhausting. By the time track three, "Paddling Ghost," ends you might need a break - it feels almost as if Deacon has thrown the whole world at you. The whole world, backed by somewhat organic drum programming, electro-fuzz, loads of vocal effects, endless keyboards and solid production. It's the kind of solid, hard-labored work that even a late-70s Brian Eno would be impressed by. It's the kind of work only a pop culture junkie with extensive college-level composition studies under his/her credit could accomplish.

The only real question remaining is whether or not Deacon ever intends to make music that can be taken seriously by the heard-it-all set. (Is he maybe just a step or two too far ahead of his time, or will his snazzy style always feel a little too youthful, playful and, well, forward looking?) Should he buckle down even more, or would doing so take away the magic? Songs like "Snookered" and "On the Mountains" suggest that Deacon is capable of making the kind of forward thinking proto-prog Radiohead has made ... but do we really need another Radiohead? Does "serious music," even when of the futuristic breed, need to be self serious and joyless in order to be effective? Something tells me Deacon will answer these questions in no time at all.

Until then, we have Bromst, one of the very few recent records this writer would consider filing under "genius." It's an extreme collection of sound that wont fit your every mood, surely, but one that will stand the test of time due to its sweeping imagination. Deacon is not so much predicting the future as he is influencing it - a rare feat indeed.