Search - My Friend the Chocolate Cake :: Brood

Debut album from Aussie folk ensemble shines

07/07/1998

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Several years ago, my Mom went to Australia on a work trip. Before she left she asked if I wanted anything in particular as a souvenir; I said get something interesting from a record store. She found a small shop in Sydney and asked the man at the counter for something poppy, uniquely Australian, and which hadn't made it to the US yet. He handed her this album. I didn't know what to make of it after playing it the first time -- it starts out with a mournful classical piece that would make the Kronos Quartet proud, then segues into fanciful folk-pop. But the more I listened to it, the more I (and my housemate) fell in love with it and had a hard time extracting it from the CD player. It's a bit schizophrenic in tone and tune, veering between the brooding instrumentals of the title and the frisky pop-oriented songs (which evoke John Prine and Greg Brown). But ultimately, the whole is definitely worth the sum of its parts."