Have you ever heard of a didgeridoo? Chances are, unless you’re
\nreading this in Australia or you know something about the land
\n“down under,” you haven’t. According to my trusty copy of Microsoft
\nEncarta, the best way to describe this instrument is as an
\nAborigine trumpet made out of a hollowed-out eucalyptus branch.
\nWhen played, it produces a drone-like sound that can be shaped by
\nthe player with their mouth. It’s an intriguing sound, though I
\nknow some people that would probably put this up on the same shelf
\nwith Tuvan throat singing.<\/p>\n
If you have ever heard the didgeridoo, would you have ever
\nexpected it to be used in popular music? I never would have thought
\nabout this instrument being used in such a manner, until I heard
\nthe Australian band Brother’s latest disc
\nYour Backyard<\/i>. A group who is just beginning to get serious
\nnotice in the States, they are a pleasant pop group who utilize
\ninstruments like didgeridoo and bagpipes into more traditional
\nguitar-driven melodies, with surprisingly pleasant results.<\/p>\n
The brothers – Angus and Hamish – lead this group, which
\nutilizes a mixture of live drums and samples on record. The
\nbrothers handle a lot of the instruments themselves, and though one
\nmight expect a little bit of performance degradation due to
\nhandling multiple instruments, these two prove themselves capable
\nof the task.<\/p>\n
The opening track “Stand Beside Me” will give most listeners
\ntheir first taste of the didgeridoo. On this track, its use is
\nintriguing, acting almost as a guide track for the rest of the
\nsong, which quickly falls into a pleasant little pop number that
\nall should find enjoyable. After hearing this track just once, I
\nfound myself wondering why this band has not had a serious shot at
\nU.S. fame until now.<\/p>\n
\nYour Backyard<\/i> continues in a poppy, harmonious vein with
\nradio-friendly tracks like “2 Chairs & One Tree,” “Mean To Me”
\nand “In The Water,” all songs which stood out as being exceptional.
\nAfter a while, you might not even notice the way that bagpipes or
\npenny whistles are worked into the arrangement; they all flow
\ntogether so naturally.<\/p>\n
The only problem with
\nYour Backyard<\/i> is that the formula starts to lose its magic
\nabout three-fourths of the way through the album. It’s not that
\nsongs like “Midnight Sun” and “Purple Haze” (the latter is not a
\ncover of the Jimi Hendrix tune) are bad, it’s just that they don’t
\nstand out like some of the earlier songs did. The closing number,
\n“thetimeisnow,” has more of an outback sound to it, and is a nice
\nenough way to close this album – if you don’t count the faint,
\nbonus track tacked on to the end of it.<\/p>\n
Maybe some people would be scared away from Brother by reading
\nthat they’re using instruments like bagpipes and didgeridoo, and
\nthat’s too bad. Instead, it would be nice to have this song played
\nto someone without them knowing what they were about to listen to,
\nand let them become enchanted with the pop music that eeks out of
\nthe speakers. For in the end, it really doesn’t matter that Brother
\nis using different instruments to create
\nYour Backyard<\/i>; instead, it matters that they’re good at what
\nthey do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7471],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39148","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-brother","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39148"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}