“(BROKER) may look like a box of odd socks but there’s nothing else mismatched about their precise, mathy hardcore, and tonight they’re nothing less than immense’ – Kerrang! Live review
Fridges, puppies, mountain bikes and leather sofas – all things commonly found on a popular, online small-ads site. Ferocious, DIY-hardcore technicians can now be added to that list: ‘…we formed on Gumtree and were total strangers before that. I put out an ad and Mark replied, then Laurence. Nobody else was ever involved. I suppose it’s noteworthy but also a bit unspectacular.”
Mathy-hardcore in delivery and DIY-underground in ideology, the band have earned notoriety for their raw, intense live performances and a frenetic, yet multifaceted sound.
Broker have wracked up notable support slots with acts such as Future Of The Left, Pneu, Royal Blood, USA Nails, I’m Being Good and many more. The band’s DIY ethos hails back the early days of punk self-mobilisation, frequently organising their own European tours and locally promoting like-minded bands including Shield Your Eyes, Workin’ Man Noise Unit and Yards.
Despite comparisons drawn thus far to Slint, Botch, Mars Volta and Cardiacs, Broker’s sound defies easy categorisation. Heavy enough for the metallers and fiery enough for the punks – the band draws its musical inspiration from the passion and fury of hardcore and the fluidity and experimentation of prog and math.
Informed by Cervantes’ The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha and the confusion throughout that book of Don Quixote’s true identity, the songs on the intentionally mis-spelt ‘QUIXOTA’ explore contemporary notions of identity and ‘otherness’. Lead singer Duncan explains, “The record is a demonstration of how difficult it is to define and accept any idea of normal or abnormal.”
From the disjointed awkwardness of ‘The Grass Is Always Greener In Kreuzberg’ to the melancholic nuance of ‘Torso, The Idol’ and ‘Miller’, ‘QUIXOTA’ is an intruiging and compelling album. “Songs like ‘White’ are about people I’ve know who have suffered from breakdowns and changes in their reality while ‘Talk’ and ‘Torso’ are about submitting to ones own shifting mental states.”
The album is available on physical and digital formats from Smalltown America on October 21st, 2016.