The Brummies

One Liner: Retro, indie rock that makes me think of Harry Styles last album

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but this is indie rock and retro rock
Home: Birmingham, AL

Poster Position: 25
Weekend Two Only.  Saturday.

Thoughts:  The Brummie dialect is spoken by the people of Birmingham, England, and the term is also generically used to refer to people from that region.  If you want to dig deeper into the "dialect" at issue here, know that the Wikipedia people who wrote the article about it are deeply involved.  A sampling: "Additionally, population mobility has meant that to a degree, the Brummie accent extends into some parts of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, but much of the accent within the borough might be considered to be closer to contemporary RP. For example, Solihull-born presenter Richard Hammond (despite often being referred to as a Brummie) does not speak with a strong Brummie accent but is identifiably from the West Midlands."  WTF, man.  We all have too much time on our hands (says the nerd who is going to write 2,000 words about some band he just heard of for the first time on a music festival poster).

But, for some fun "traditional expressions" in this dialect:

• Bottler - a popular and enjoyable song.
• Blart - to weep or cry.
• Our wench - affectionate term, meaning sister.
• Throw a wobbly - to become sulky or have a tantrum
• Yampy - mad, daft, barmy.

MMMMMMMkay.  Definitely going to call my sister a wench later and see how that goes.

Instead of being from the UK though, these dudes are from Birmingham, Alabama.  That's just plain yampy!  But they definitely have a few bottlers in their catalog.  I have yet to blart during any of them, but we'll see how it goes as I continue to dig through the catalog.  The tunes are a solid indie rock sound - lots of harmonies and full arrangements.  This is likely an awful comparison but it kind of reminds me of what Harry Styles is doing right now with a slightly retro angle on old school soft-rock sounds.

Their top song is from the 2018 freshman album Eternal Reach.  Overall, a really good album, which includes an appearance from non other than Spacey Kacey herself.  But "Takes Some Time" is the top track at barely over 7 million streams.

I'm a little mystified as to why the stream counts are so low on this band.  I personally really like these songs, but I also feel like they tap into a sound that is very popular right now.  And yet that video has 14k views.  Cool, chilled groove on that tune.  "Going Crazy" is more of a straight-forward rocker and I'm very on board.

3 guys in the band, who have been playing together in various arrangements since high school.  In addition to this band, the vocalists have also written tunes that have been picked up by other artists, like one called "Done" that was recorded by something called The Band Perry that apparently went to #1 on the Country Airplay Billboard chart.

In 2020 they released a new album, Automatic World, which keeps with the same retro-ized rock take on pastoral rock.  The top track from there is "Sunshine," with only 1.6 million streams.

You know I'm right - that could totally be a Harry Styles groove right there.  Although I would expect more out of him in the lyrics department.  But its a good, happy tune with pure tones and loveliness.

I've enjoyed my run with these songs - I'd definitely go see these guys if I was around on the second weekend.