On first listen, BRKN Love’s debut self-titled sounds like a marriage between Queens of the Stone Age and Arctic Monkeys. The songs sound like a mixture of the post-punk revival of the early 2000s with hard rock from that same era, with a little Soundgarden thrown in. Justin Benlolo, a high school dropout from Toronto, Canada, writes all the music, plays guitar and sings. In an interview with 100% Rock Magazine, he listed Soundgarden, Foo Fighters and Jeff Buckley as a few of his influences.
Those influences are incorporated as smartly and crisply as the band’s music sounds. The opening song, “I Can’t Lie,” is a guaranteed head-bobber with all-encompassing guitar riffs and electronic sounds to buff the chorus. “Oxygen” is satisfyingly melodic as it is heavy, and “Papercuts” has thundering bass to a poppy rhythm. Benlolo sounds as if he were possessed by Chris Cornell’s spirit in home run hit “Shot Down,” when he howls out the chorus halfway through the song, “Shot down in the bottom of a valley!” The last song, “In Your Hands,” is a grungy treat that serves as icing on the cake.
In his interview, Benlolo expressed that the music in BRKN Love is upfront and balances heaviness with sweetness. The lyrics of most of these songs aren’t written too aggressive or too depressive, but they resemble lashing out against some wrongdoing. “I’m killing off the only truth / Cause everybody’s black and blue / I see red, I see red / When I see you,” Benlolo sings in “I See Red.” Another song, “Flies in the Honey,” tells a tale of greed, “Poison in the wine / Shame in the money / Diamonds in the sky / Hands getting bloody.”
This band is good for anyone who likes sludgy guitar riffs mixed with pop vocals, fans of stuff like Royal Blood and Highly Suspect. Fun fact: Joel Hamilton caught one of Benlolo’s demo tapes when BRKN Love started and had the band record the 11-track album at his Brooklyn studio, so there’s little coincidence in the similarity of sound. BRKN Love is signed onto a Finnish label, but their record is some American shelves and can be found on Discogs for a good price.
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Praise be to BRKN Love and here’s hoping they’ll visit Milwaukee when this pandemic finally dies down, though our local venues are struggling to stay open right now. Right now the National Independent Venue Association in Wisconsin is petitioning for help from the state government to keep clubs open, and they might get it with a miracle or two.
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