Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Mar 29, 2011the doting Vasquez love song "Blue Eyes," the lyrical Dawes lost song "Thanks for Nothing," and the clippety-clopping Replacements road song "Portland" all augment the deep craft and acrid wordplay of the guy who's why you heard them‑-in fact, who's why you heard this varied, consistent, tune-conscious album.
-
Mar 14, 2011Typical for a "supergroup," Middle Brother sounds more like a collection of strong musical personalities crowded into the same space than an actual band on its charmingly ragged, self-titled debut.
-
Mar 14, 2011Middle Brother is a prediction of great things to come. It's a promise that a new generation of songwriters is rising up to carry and brilliantly build on the tradition.
-
Dec 7, 2011Its members share a similar sensibility, so that, although they alternate selections as if participating in a song pull, the album holds together in the same spirit... the familiar one of the drunken slacker full of gallows humor, and the folk and folk-rock music, appropriately, is played in ramshackle, thrown-together arrangements.
-
Mar 14, 2011The rollicking self-titled album born of this boozy alliance is somehow far more satisfying than has the right to be.
-
Mar 14, 2011Half the songs on Middle Brother involve drinking and the rest hangovers of the heart, and on Paul Westerberg's "Portland," everyone chimes in on the line "It's too late to turn back, here we gooooo" - they're certain of trouble ahead, and relishing it.
-
Mar 17, 2011While all three songwriters shine, the most compelling aspect of these recordings lies in the effectiveness of the shading that each adds to the others' tunes.