Everytime you watch Brickcity, you lose your mind.
It may seem cliché right until you experience them first-hand, and realize that almost none of their contemporaries have the same kind of mental and emotional impact. Groundbreaking bands have come and gone; Brickcity remains, refining complex sounds into more distinct, sentimental packages. Call Jacques & co. anything you want, pinpoint all the technical stuff they lack, but in their new album, you can’t accuse them of not trying – every familiar and unfamiliar song takes risks; every sound bold and creatively restless.
The Bones We Used To Share is a collection of B R I C’s willful optimism and pessimism about love (mostly), secret affairs, moments, lingering impressions, women, lovers, and everything in between. It also features a Gwen Stacy tribute with all the “feels” from what could have been Parker’s POV, and a very short no-nonsense about a budding one-sided infatuation of Tina (from Bob’s Burger) in Love, Tina.
Most of the songs are straightforward. Lyrics are matter-of-factly – no roundabouts, no BS, just a bullet through the heart. If you want adventure listen to Freud, which tells you that a fling always…
“…ends where it all began
in the arms of separate lovers.”
Or Transit, which narrates a short-lived non-verbal interaction between two strangers.
of what’s between imagination and self-control.
Undeniably, we speak more signs than words.”
Common Remedies For Contemporary People is as symbolic as you can get. The crowd favorite was released last 2014 that constitutes the band’s creative and musical peak. Written to be figured out by the audience/listeners themselves, the song is furious, deliberately dark, and packed with lyrical understatement. It could be about abortion, about a group of friends screaming “fuck the world”; it could be anything you want. Common brings color, emotions and interaction to the band’s composition, as the Bric boys have rendered every word figuratively and every instrument luminous.
It’s incredible how far Brickcity has moved from Entering Ms. Take that marked their 2009 debut. Six years passed since describing them as a plain "screamo" band lost a bit of sense; they probably left that phase behind with the release of Meg And Tom – a very relatable real-life B R I C version of Meg Ryan and Tom Hank’s You’ve Got Mail, and the opening track to The Bones We Used To Share.
The new album is experimental in its own sweet way. Five years in the making made it more of a book than anything else. Every song is a story, every story is related. If you haven’t guessed it, you haven’t been paying attention. Four songs you haven’t heard before, 3 are easy to find, 2 will break your heart, one is a surprise.
A little word of advice, when you listen to the album, Track No. 7 in particular, imagine walking into a dim bar, a foursome band in the distance, sound thundering within. On the stage plays a mosaic of noises. Halfway through the song, Brickcity's vocalist speaks to a silent audience and says –
“Brickcity is a feeling, a moment in time, an experience,
not me, nor the 3 of them, but a collection of these memories we share,
every glitch, every technical difficulty.
After 10-15 years you’ll forget us, we’ll be another funny-haired band you dare to forget.
But “this moment” may last a lifetime,
no need to comply on how to dance or dress, there are no shoe game nor a need for those shirts you’re “reppin’", you don’t need to try.
It’s okay to fuck up and give up,
‘cause tonight these songs are our songs,
and this stage is our stage.”
—One of the spoken words in Common Remedies, Brickcity 2015
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