Broken Equipment

With 'Broken Equipment' BODEGA has transformed from a band to watch to something truly exciting indeed. Any early album of the year contender for those who like their music as sharp as a knife.

BODEGA’s most vital moments come when they lower their guard down and just let it all out.

On Broken Equipment, BODEGA don’t sugar-coat the intoxicating feeling New York can create when it gets into your blood. If you can survive the constant rent hikes, shady practices from shifty landlords, collapsing infrastructure, and a cyclical reshuffling of artistic epicenters and neighborhood fixtures, it’s an adrenaline high worth building a life around. This one’s for the ones able to hang on.

Instrumentally the record feels like a flash in the pan; the first few bites are crunchy and moreish, but it does become a little dry after a while. At times this doesn’t matter because the lyrics hold you, but then again that’s like having half a slice of pizza; good, but not quite satiating.

It makes for a fine second album from a band that could have easily been nothing more than a one-trick pony.

It's a tart set but not a sour one - concerns are laid bare and life lessons shared, with whip-smart confidence. [Apr 2022, p.25]

It’s more confident, a little sexier. It also finds the outfit playing mostly the same old tricks as last time, for mixed results.

Broken Equipment often sounds like a band weary of having to make the same points they’ve always made but then doing it anyway. They shine best when they write about love, when their vocals go beyond sing-speaking, and when they blast the overdrive on their midtempo punk riffs.

There are some diamonds in the rough, and it’s seldom uninteresting, but just like a drunk cousin at a wedding, who can make you laugh and is a good lead, Broken Equipment can occasionally grate as it wears you out.