Brond are a Bulgarian rock band and this is their debut album.
Brond’s music mixes riff-focused modern rock and post-hardcore/rock, with progressive, stoner, and noise/math rock tendencies. Wow. Now there’s a description. Delivering eight tracks across almost 44 minutes of music, Graveyard Campfire is a well-realised and enjoyable release, despite my mangling together of various subgenres in an attempt to loosely categorise it.
As you can probably guess, the band have multiple influences and aspects to their delivery, and these manifest in different ways in the songs. Sometimes the band like to kick out the jams with enthusiasm and wild abandon, while at others they take a more progressive and considered approach. At still other times they channel their love of old-school hardcore and unleash some energetic aggression, whereas at other moments they’re delivering a quirkier, atypical moment. Mostly, however, Brond deal in riffs, and they have quite a stockpile of them.
Apparently all four of the band members share in the vocal duties, which at least partially explains the variety that’s on show here. This mimics the music in this way, with a good range of styles showcased. Like the music, however, it all gels together seamlessly. Despite the fact that Brond easily give the impression that they can try their hand at almost anything on this album, (and sometimes do), it all comes together into a consistent and easily digestible delivery that hits more than it misses.
If you mix together aspects of Black Flag, Mastodon, Every Time I Die, Red Fang, Minor Threat, Cave In, Baroness, and Melvins, (among others), you’ll have a rough starting point for Brond’s sound, at least in vague terms.
A highly recommended listen.
Off to Brond bandcamp