Lineup 2016
The Brood
Dartmouth, NS
Blending the bizarro vibes of Devo, The B52s,and Frank Zappa, guitar riffs that recall the everyman blues brilliance of Chuck Berry, and a bit of Genesis’s synthscapes and Ween’s wit, The Brood are flying their freak flag high at the forefront of their very own 21 st century East Coast sound: one that draws from the artistic innovation of the past while keeping its grooves decidedly in the spectacular (and radical) now.
And having some fun, too, of course. The title track for their most recent release, Deranged Love, is a spacey blitz of offbeat weirdo art rock that looks the typically cheesy and saccharine love song in the eye and punches it in the gut.The breezy “Birthday” floats along on pillowy synths, evoking the kind of elation that could only come from leaving a job you can’t stand. “All Debit No Credit” dips further into the hole of strange The Brood continues to dig, with jabby guitars and breakneck pace bass lines driving its aura of paranoia. The Brood’s eclectic reservoir of sounds has led Canadian national treasure Joel Plaskett to call them, “the most interesting and exciting live band I’ve seen in Halifax in years.”
The band claim, cryptically, to have met in “Room 2254,” take their name from Canadian horror legend David Cronenberg’s 1979 thriller, but the most terrifying thing about them is their supernatural ability to craft addictive hooks. Every member of The Brood—Seamus Erskine (guitar/vocals), Billy Taylor Habib (bass/vocals), and Siobhan Martin (keys/vocals)—has been making music since they were just a kid. And while they might sing it in their embattled Deranged Love standout, rest assured you’ll never find The Brood “giving up on rock ‘n’roll.”
Their growing legion of fans aren’t the only people who have recognized The Brood’s excellence in the field of rock ‘n’ roll music. Despite only being a couple of years old, they’ve already been nominated for two Music Nova Scotia Awards: (New Recording Artist of the Year, and Alternative Recording Artist of the Year), and won the first ever Casino NS Artist In Residence Program. The Brood are Halifax’s latest musical torchbearers: a band the rest of the world should keep an eye and ear out for.