Release Date: Sep 9, 2008
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Merge
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Buy Now Or Heaven from Amazon
The young guys in the Broken West might need to learn how to take a compliment. The Los Angeles band’s first album, 2007’s I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On, garnered the group copious comparisons to the stalwarts of power pop. But in the press, the Broken West voiced dissatisfaction with this pigeonholing. Lead singer Ross Flournoy decried “another goddamn Big Star comparison” in the LA Weekly.
The Broken West's debut album I Can't Go On, I'll Go On was full of sunshine. The big, bright guitars, lush and sweet vocal harmonies, and huge, friendly hooks called to mind bands like Teenage Fanclub or Beachwood Sparks; bands who sound Californian through and through, in other words. On the follow-up, Now or Heaven, they strip almost all of the sunshine out of their sound.
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