Coextinction Recordings was founded late last year by the formidable team of Dave Curran (Unsane, Players Club, Pigs), James Paradise (Fresh Kills, Players Club, Pigs), Chris Spencer (Unsane) and producer Andrew Schneider (Pigs, Slughog), and has already had digital releases from the founders’ bands as well as Shrinebuilder, Goes Cube and Julie Christmas, among others. Their ninth release — aptly titled Coextinction Recordings 9 — is a three-song EP from New York rockers The Brought Low.

Boasting the songs “Army of Soldiers,” “Black River” and “Don’t Give Up Your Good Thing,” The Brought Low‘s Coextinction EP (produced, not surprisingly, by the band in conjunction with Schneider) distills the elements that make the band among the finest their overcrowded city has to offer. The opener is a classic Brought Low barn-burner, “Black River” finds bassist Bob Russell taking the lead for some mid-paced classic rock stomp, and on the seven-minute finale, “Don’t Give Up Your Good Thing,” the trio — Russell, guitarist/vocalist Ben Smith and drummer Nick Heller — slam on the breaks and deliver the twanged-out melancholy as only they can.

The band and Coextinction were kind enough to allow me to host “Army of Soldiers” for streaming on the player below, so please check it out. Under that, you’ll find some insight from Smith and Russell about the three songs. Thanks much to all parties involved for kicking ass.

The Brought Low‘s EP is available for a whopping $2.99 at Coextinction‘s website: http://www.coextinction.com

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“Army of Soldiers”

Ben Smith: The result of listening to too much NWOBHM in Bob‘s truck last tour. Originally the lyrics were about knights and dragons but I couldn’t sing them with a straight face so Bob suggested, “Make it about being a kid in Queens and getting fucked up on angel dust and doing graffiti.” Done.

Bob Russell: If you ever stood in the freezing cold somewhere in the woods wearing only your denim jacket and Cons just so you could listen to your Celtic Frost tape and drink a few cans of stolen Budweiser with your friends, then the army of soldiers wants YOU.

“Black River”

BR: “Black River” is about doing bad things. You may not want to do ’em, but you know you’re gonna do ’em. I wrote it while having to walk across the English Kills to work on a shitty construction site right between a waste transfer station and a demolition transfer station. I always wondered what you’d find at the bottom of that water.

BS: Bob’s jam. He had given me an acoustic demo of it and I instantly thought we could turn it up. Fulfills my dream of The Brought Low sounding like The Band using Marshall stacks.

“Don’t Give Up Your Good Thing”

BS: Wouldn’t be a Brought Low release without a weeper.  Had the first two verses for like 10 years but didn’t write the last verse until a few months ago. Whenever I bring in a ballad I always worry the dudes won’t like it yet they always do, which makes me very happy.

BR: I think this is the most glacially-paced song we’ve recorded. We reckoned it begs for horns and keys and stuff but here, in its sparse version, it works kind of sweet. This is also the first time I’ve seen Ben play a Strat. Just attach yourself to Nick‘s ride cymbal and don’t make any plans for the next seven minutes.

Get The Brought Low’s Coextinction EP here

Tags: Coextinction Recordings, New York, The Brought Low

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2011 at 10:47 am and is filed under audiObelisk, Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.