Welcome to Review Revue, where every Thursday I dig through the KEXP stacks to share DJ reviews and comments written on the covers of LPs (and occasionally CDs) in the ’80s and ’90s, when the station was called KCMU, the DJs were volunteers, and people shared their opinions on little white labels instead of the internet.
It turns out "The Brood" is a pretty popular band name. The Portland, Maine band whose work we're examining today (shout-out to our Maine readers!) won the 1980s battle of the Broods, as the California thrash band that emerged around the same time under the same name decided to go for the more clearly thrash-oriented "Uncle Slam." Our Brood was also more long-lived, releasing albums until 2000, yet for some reason, Uncle Slam is the one with a Wikipedia page — and their music is much easier to find online. Sexism? Probably.
The KCMU staff seemed to like this record well enough, but they were arguably more excited about the fact that the band had a Tom Cruise lookalike in the foreground of their album cover. Hey, whatever floats your boat.
"Hey, is that Tom Cruise?" [Speech bubble drawn over the third member from the left, whispering to the band member on the right.]
"Sounds like it looks. Female Barracudas or Chesterfield Kings. Nice organ. If you think you'd like it you probably will. Lotsa songs to choose from."
"This album just shows you how pretensious [sic] those females can be. They should all get haircuts before someone thinks that they're guys!" [I understand that this is a joke, but I'm not quite sure what the actual joke is, or who it's on.]
"Good sounds though!"
"I'm not too fond of this kind of stuff but it's variety in the rock genre! So I'll play it."
"Tom Cruise?" [arrow pointing to aforementioned Cruise-alike]
This week's Review Revue spotlights the album Humansville by long-running, accordion-using band Brave Combo. See what KCMU DJs thought back in the day.
This week's Review Revue spotlights the album Burning From the Inside by Bauhaus. See what KCMU DJs thought back in the day.
This week's Review Revue spotlights the album PKD by Philly-based band Bunnydrums. See what KCMU DJs thought back in the day.
This week's Review Revue revisits a mysterious LP from mid-'80s San Francisco-based duo Breather. See what KCMU DJs thought back in the day.
