Search - Bright :: Full Negative Or Breaks

Brilliant, expansive post-rock

Charles S. Hague | Somerville, MA | 12/04/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album is in the vein of Mogwai et al; songs that take a while to unfold, with interesting and repetitive guitar textures. It is difficult to describe why this sort of album works or does not work: some groups can pull this off and some can't, but describing exactly why full negative (or) breaks is such a great record is quite difficult. Imagine the bits of long-form Yo La Tengo songs where Ira stops singing for quite some time and just drones blissfully instead, mixed with the best parts of Mogwai's Young Team and you'll have something of an approximation of what's going on here. The guitar lines mutate and change slowly, moving between quiet arpeggios and sheets of noise. This is, I think, the sort of mood that Mogwai was reaching for on Come On Die Young (although Full Negative (or) Breaks is more rockin' than that album); I didn't think that Mogwai succeeded on that disk, but here Bright have given us a new landmark in this dreamy, drony area of post-rock. It's too bad that they're relatively obscure, because this disk deserves to be heard by many people. Also, I'd bet that Bright are a hell of a lot of fun live."