Between this and yesterday’s live review, that’s two days in a row of writing about NYC rockers The Brought Low, and as far as I’m concerned, those are two good days. Even though I made this list weeks ago at this point, seeing New York‘s most powerful power trio play live again this past weekend only reaffirmed how much they belong on it. The Brought Low are killer heavy rock. End of story.

Third Record was their second release for Small Stone, and it rested on the mighty groove of tracks like “The Kelly Rose” and “My Favorite Waste of Time” just as much as the wistful emotionality of its ballads, “A Thousand Miles Away” and “Last Man Alive.” It opened catchy with “Old Century” and was enough to keep me coming back to The Brought Low for the whole year. And seriously, it was just about the whole year. I reviewed this thing in February.

I don’t think The Brought Low are ever going to be an album-a-year kind of band, but when they do get to putting out records, they’re killer. Third Record is the closest the band has come to capturing their formidable live energy on tape, and it was genuinely worth the four-year wait to get it. As the band matures, they only seem to get better, and of Small Stone‘s several really strong offerings in 2010, The Brought Low was most definitely among the upper crust.

Tags: New York, New York City, Small Stone, The Brought Low, Top 20 of 2010

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.