armed with a kazoo and electric guitar, stephen brodsky returns with another excellent addition to his rapidly growing catalogue. calling himself “stove bredsky” this time around, brodsky’s bizzare name change hints that this album is a bit of a departure from what he’s done before: it may sound like stephen brodsky, but it isn’t. there still are remnants of the lo-fi pop leanings of the octave museum, and the rumbling guitars from pet genius, but what’s most apparent this time is brodsky’s willingness to experiment. the instrumental “a swelling hope” is particularly representative of this openness to experimentation, humming along, grounded by brodsky’s acoustic guitar so that it doesn’t float away, all the while creating an overwhelming feeling of optimism; the song is truly uplifting. sometimes this adventurousness gets the better of him, however, and the record slumps in places as a result, robbing it of the exuberance that made stephen brodsky’s octave museum such a pleasure to listen to. the songwriting here is in top-form though, as the majority of the songs find a balance between being irreverent, witty, idiosyncratic and poignant, making the robert-pollard-comparisons all the more relevant while also showing that brodsky is fully capable of being a consistent songwriter in terms of both quality and quantity.
Filed under: Album Review , 2008, pet genius, stephen brodsky, stove bredsky, the black ribbon award, the octave museum
[...] mr. brodsky has already proven that his solo work is where his priorities lay, it’ll be interesting to [...]