Planet Brain & Lebatol - Split LP

 

Planet Brain are really two bands putting up with each other, with the rhythm section doing their level-best to sound like a Washington hardcore outfit, while singer Marcello thinks he's homaging Queen and Hot Hot Heat. Weirdly, it works: Mirror 7 and The Fog in Between sound like Matt Belamy injecting a shot of space-opera zarjaz to the logical precision of maths-rockers Faraquet, breathing a little ghost into the machine in the process.

Lebatol, on the other hand, are a sonic nostalgia trip, sounding like Part Chimp deciding to do a set of 100 Broken Windows-era Idlewild covers. 3 Kinds of Today- Cabbage Attaching provokes wistful memories of a young Idlewild with fire in their bellies, while album highlight PeekaBoo YouFucksYou comes across as an overdrive-smeared Lowgold. Wrapped up together in this package, Lebatol and Planet Brain evoke the wonderful but sad feeling of “shit, how many good bands are out there that I've never heard?”