It has allways alluded me as to why Tad never really went nuclear. Listening back to Tad’s decade long career I hear a band who sound like nothing else on earth. I’ve allways maintained that they were a rock band, with all the magnificence and drama the word implies accompanied by a near mythic line in unhinged slow motion agression, unexpected pop hooks, serating metal and feedback manipulation. They also had the ability to change identity from record to record. Perhaps they were never easy to pin down, perhaps they had too many bad breaks, perhaps the world wasn’t ready. Now the world is ready, and you can see it in the excitment and anticipation with which Tad’s new band is being recieved. Brothers Of the Sonic Cloth almost take us back to the beginning, to the primal bellowing sludge of God’s Balls, except with a more classic rock direction and couple of huge boots in doom…think Harvey Milk jamming with Neurosis, a surrender to the power of total immersion. I say immersion because the drums are massive! In fact the whole production is giant sized. Peg Tully and Aaron D.C Edge both create, drive and lock into the sound beautifully as Tad Doyle layers riffs, circulates leads and sings and screams through the dense hard hitting mud. I find it interesting that Kim Thayil talks in ‘TAD: Busted Circuits Ringing Ears’ about how Tad first came to be signed to Sub Pop as an arranger rather than spending years on the gig circuit. Anyone who has diligently followed the bands progress since it’s conception can attest to this fact again here. Except this time he has now found a foil in the stomping death march of ‘Edge’s and Peg Tully’s imaginitive rhythm section. Right now the world of heavy rock is currently and rightly so very much in favour of the sonically devoted. A world where the likes of Earth, Harvey Milk, Melvins and Jesu march into their third decade with astounding grace and a world who I believe will be recieving Brothers Of The Sonic Cloth with the same musical awe.
Posted on Saturday, 28 March 2009
