Send "Turin Brakes " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Clashmusic |
 Cooking VinylSince making their debut on Anvil Records way back in 1999, Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian’s Turin Brakes enjoyed a meteoric rise. Success saw the new acoustic movement fall away in favour of the support of a full band and big name producers. ‘Outbursts’ then is perhaps most notable in its return to something simpler, leaving the stadium far behind in favour of more intimate venues. ‘Sea Change’ is as epic as anything that came later, Knights’ vocal supplemented by a rich seam of orchestration, but much of the material here could have been lifted from those early recordings, where skeletal fret work frames angelic vocals. A return to the source....full text |
| Musicomh |
| Turin Brakes - Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian - return and expectancy is, well, middling at best: for all the promise of their Mercury-nominated 2001 debut The Optimist, subsequent releases have failed to capture its essence, and with it the buzz around the Turin Brakes brand. Rather than second or third album syndrome, it would appear that the band's trajectory was altered as a matter of design rather than fault. Eschewing organic acoustica in favour of soft-rock stylings, and accumulating bodies in the process, Olly and Gale swapped Emergency 72's exquisite paranoia for Snow Patrol-style safe playing. And while these albums - Ether Song, JackInABox, Dark On Fire - were all perfectly well received, being as they were entirely competent productions, they spurned Optimist's rawness, sounding by comparison extremely polished and comfortable, not to mention flirting dangerously with the slumbering tenets of easy listening. This is why Outbursts may just exceed wavering expectations. Written, produced and performed by just the two of them (for the most part, anyway), Turin Brakes are harking back to their edgier origins. To paraphrase Olly, they're no longer having to play major label politics. The scene is set. Opening track and lead single Sea Change sets the band's stall with aplomb, a folky strum soon joined by a thumping kick drum and Olly's trademark timbre: "Six billion backs against the wall / Now do we walk or run?" It's a leap back to their 2001 urgency, everything intact, everything immediate....full text |
| Bbc |
| This, their first studio album since 2007’s Dark on Fire, continues Turin Brakes’ folk-infused journey from the southern end of London’s Northern Line. Since their emergence via the spuriously labelled ‘new acoustic movement’, alongside Kings of Convenience, in 2001, they have been occasionally written off as insubstantial, despite their albums suggesting otherwise. Following the more band-orientated atmospheres of recent releases, Outbreaks is stripped back to the core duo of school friends Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian. Some bands are liberated by the closure afforded by releasing a greatest hits set, as Turin Brakes did in 2009, but on this evidence not much has changed. Outbreaks features a familiar sound – perhaps over familiar to those finding their last outing wanting. This album’s calling card, Sea Change, starts so well that the rest of the album fades in its shadow. It’s a gentle epic, building from an acoustic start, slowly introducing kick drum, vocal harmonies and strings, and with the emergence of cowbells even the kazoo must be hoping for an appearance. Unsurprisingly it is the first single. Mirror successfully continues this soulful take on acoustic traits, as does the lyrically charming Paper Heart: “And it’s you I blame / when I crash paper planes”. Will Power echoes the lilt of their 2001 hit Underdog (Save Me), with clever guitar work elevating it above the rest of the album, which lurches in a worrying manner towards nondescript filler. It is the underwritten Embryos that fumbles the baton; it talks of “breathing underwater”, but is so dreary you wish its makers would try it. Radio Silence finally gives up its search for a tune to ‘rock out’, as is their occasional wont when playing live. That can work in the environment of a gig, but here it jars, unsettling like a brick dropped in still water. Back to basics is their aim, although fellow Londoners Hot Chip recently achieved similar simplicity, with greater success. ...full text |
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