THE BLOOD BROTHERS are hitting the road starting January 3, 2003, for at least fifteen dates with The Used. If you've never seen The Blood Brothers in concert, read what the Editor-in-Chief of Alternative Press said about their recent Cleveland show:
"Anybody who does not revel in the majesty that is THE BLOOD BROTHERS is not to be trusted. They were so good last night, I shed tears."
Or, from the UK's NME:
"The Blood Brothers are like NOTHING else in 2002. This Seattle quintet are leading lights of a scene that fuses avant garde electronica with sandpaper-rough hardcore punk, death metal, and too-tight t-shirts...this fidgety, abrasive, downright WEIRD little band'll be huge. Can't wait."
The Blood Brothers have been getting more fabulous press in the past few months than most bands get in a lifetime. The band's ARTISTdirect Records' debut, "Burn Piano Island, Burn," produced by Ross Robinson (Limp Bizkit, At The Drive-in) will be released in March, 2003.
Even by the most extreme standards of punk rock, the upcoming release by THE BLOOD BROTHERS will shock and amaze.
With sessions wrapped up last spring, "Burn Piano Island, Burn" captures the Seattle-based band in all its gory splendor, with tracks like "Guitarmy," whose compressed violence in just 37 seconds smashes the measures of energy applied to virtually everything else ever recorded.
But by also featuring acoustic guitar strums, vintage electric pianos, and even a xylophone, The Blood Brothers challenge the preconceptions of their underground fan base, for whom "selling out" as a band would be as welcome as a Taliban fund-raiser at the Rotary Club.
Since putting The Blood Brothers together in 1997, singers Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney, guitarist Cody Votolato, bassist Morgan Henderson, and drummer Mark Gajadhar have enjoyed impeccable alt credibility. Their first two albums, both independent releases, pushed even jaded observers to adjectival excess: Metal Hammer described their second CD, March On Electric Children, as "perhaps the most instantaneously startling and immediately engrossing rock records you'll hear all year," while CMJ New Music Report mused, "What kind of drugs are these fucking kids on?"
But there's more to "Burn Piano Island, Burn" than shredded throats and primal intensity. On tracks like "The Salesman, Denver Max," whose collision of folkie guitar and tribal vocals suggests an execution hootenanny in Lord of the Flies, or "Every Breath is a Bomb," with avant-garde sound collages that recall John Cage, The Blood Brothers identify and attack the rules that have come to define punk as rigidly as those of any other genre.
According to Robinson, The Blood Brothers' "Burn Piano Island, Burn" is "what integrity sounds like."
Confirmed tour dates for The Blood Brothers and The Used are as follows:
JANUARY
3 DV8, Salt Lake City, UT
4 Gothic Theatre, Englewood, CO
6 Trees, Dallas, TX
7 Engine Room, Houston, TX
8 The Mercury, Austin, TX
10 Sunshine Theatre, Albuquerque, NM
11 Huntridge Theatre, Las Vegas, NV
12 Nita's Hideaway, Tempe, AZ
13 The Scene, San Diego, CA
14 Glass House, Pomona, CA
15 Slim's San Francisco, CA
16 The Boardwalk, Orangevale, CA
18 Roseland Theatre, Portland, OR
19 Richard's on Richards, Vancouver, BC CANADA
20 The Showbox, Seattle, WA