Touchdown

Album Review

If the Brakes were the Pixies (a band that sounds very similar), Touchdown would be their Doolittle — that is, a slightly more polished and accessible album than their last, showing the band tightening their reigns slightly and turning in some of their tightest, cleanest work to date. It's a genuine alt pop album, one that finds the former and current members of British Sea Power, Electric Soft Parade, and the Tenderfoot more masterful than ever at churning out opaque, punchy melodies anchored by dry wit. College rock crossover potential seems evident, but, while Touchdown looks to appeal to a broader audience than its predecessors, that's not to say that things are overly toned down or have lost their edge. Things have simply been made less convoluted by trimming off the extra fat. Brakes, like always, exercise a wide variety of styles, and show off their ability to change their dynamic range drastically from one song to the next. "Red Tag" finds the group paying tribute to Radiohead, but in a much more furious punk rock fashion, "Eternal Refrain" is a sweet little country slice about the circular nature of life, and "Leaving England" is a relieving day dreamy space ballad ends the album. But as solid as these moments are, they're a little generic sounding in the overall context. The heart of Brakes lies in their true jams: immediate jingle-jangle pop songs with big, chunky choruses. And boy, there are a lot of them.