Friday Full-Length: The Brought Low, The Brought Low
Posted in Bootleg Theater on June 30th, 2023 by JJ KoczanOn Oct. 16, 2001, barely a month after the planes flew into the Twin Towers, New York City’s The Brought Low made their self-titled debut through Tee Pee Records. A classic heavy rock power trio, they came together in 1999 with guitarist/vocalist Ben Smith and drummer Nick Heller, who’d both spent most of the ’90s in the hard-punk outfit Sweet Diesel, bassist Dean Rispler, who’d produced that band and a swath of the rest of NYC’s punk and hardcore scene by the time Sweet Diesel were done, and who has been in Tiger Mountain, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, The Dictators NYC, on and on. Dude even produced my Gimme Radio show when that was a thing. The point is he’s gotten around in 30 years of playing and performing. One could go on.
But the story here is the band itself. Recorded with Jesse Cannon and produced by Rispler, The Brought Low‘s The Brought Low runs nine songs and 41 minutes, and bringing Smith to the forefront feels in hindsight like a bigger stepping-out than perhaps one might’ve understood at the time. The genre shift from NY punk rock to a brand of Southern-tinged heavy rock looking to be both of its place and moment and wistful for something else — a past, an alternate present, something — is emblematic of what was happening in NY as bands like The Brought Low, Bad Wizard, Rye Coalition and others came up in a turn-of-the-century-era blossoming of a ‘scene.’ Hell, get RPG up from Virginia, take the other three, and you’ve got yourself a probably-modestly-attended show at The Continental circa 2003. Right on.
Mirroring that shift, Smith‘s sliding into a frontman role, lead singing and only-guitaring — he’d done backing vocals in Sweet Diesel and played guitar alongside vocalist/guitarist Nat Murray (also The Monumentals, more recently The High Stride), Heller on drums, and bassist Zack Kurland (Green Dragon, Altered States); these guys are lifers, let’s just assume everyone’s been in a dozen bands — feels all the more significant for the coinciding stylistic purpose shown throughout The Brought Low‘s debut. Yeah, they had a couple burners in the opening salvo, with the organ-inclusive “What I Found” leading off before the live-show staple “God Damn, God Bless” put emphasis on blues with its harmonica and steady, ’70s-with-an-update flow, and “Motherless Sons” demonstrating in its early chorus riff the punk still at root in their rock. “Hot and Cold” would add some gallop to launch side B as well, after the Southern
rock ode to New York “Kings and Queens” revels in its own defiance of expectation to finish side A.
“Kings and Queens” and “City Boy” — “Some people love the country air/Not me I’m a city boy, oh yeah” — are in some ways telling of the group The Brought Low would become, and the same applies to the linear build that happens across the seven minutes of “Outer Borough Dust Run,” which starts with a moment of quiet before the guitar kicks in alone to begin the procession. Hindsight makes them sound impatient — because 2006’s Right on Time (discussed here) and 2010’s Third Record (review here) would show growth in that as well — but whatever tension there is early is smoothed out in the midsection with its backing vocals and stay-and-rest-a-minute hook, offered again before the guitar solo takes off shortly before five minutes in, and after for a pre-comedown crescendo. A structural standout, “Outer Borough Dust Run” also prefaced the ability that would surface on subsequent outings to sound genuinely out of place in the world when the song calls for it.
The Brought Low, as an album, remains a statement of intention on the part of the band that is only underscored by the rampant Skynyrd-ism of the lead guitar at the start of closer “Deathbed.” Heller taps the ride and hits sharp pops of snare as he as throughout, but the quieter verse build benefits from the preface it got in “Outer Borough Dust Run” and brings back the organ from “What I Found” in its sweeping finish, which ends with a few crashes and relatively subdued ceremony.
A final instrumental jam is buried as a hidden track, under two minutes long, but the point has gotten across. The Brought Low revel in the contrast. Some other players might have come together in NYC to play Southern rock and made it showier, more of a caricature. With The Brought Low, that’s not really what it’s about. It’s more the songs than the format or presentation of them. Yeah, they’re playing to a classic vinyl ideal in the makeup of the record, but that’s part of it too, because that speaks to the direct influence of heavy ’70s rock under which they are working. Or were, 22 years ago. Authenticity is a myth, and authenticity in New York doubly so — then and now unless you really dig investment properties — but The Brought Low have never sounded anything other than honest, sincere in their blues, and strident in their contradiction with the output of their own musical history (I doubt they see it as one, actually) and the expectation of Southern rock as being from the Southeastern US. The Brought Low did it early, often, and without chestbeating or sounding like a joke. That is not an accomplishment to be understated.
When I think of records from this era desperately in need of a reissue, The Brought Low‘s The Brought Low is pretty high on that list. I’ll admit that years of watching them play live — as they continue to do every now and then — has made me biased in that assessment. Their other two records being likewise rad doesn’t hurt either. But what I take away from these tracks now is the willingness to do something else, the chance-taking that happened in this material when probably, if they’d wanted, Smith and Heller and Rispler — who’d been replaced by Bob Russell by when Right on Time came out on Small Stone — probably could’ve just started another punk band and done pretty well for themselves. They didn’t. You see what I mean about honesty.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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This one’s for Johnny Arzgarth, whose attention might be caught out of what I know is a relatable and enduring affection for the band. He and his family were in Ireland and Northern Ireland this week, reminding me of my own trip there a few years back.
As I write this, we’re about to hit the road, not so far as Dublin, but to Connecticut at least, which given that it’s Friday and we’ll be doing the driving in the afternoon is going to be a fucking unpleasant disaster on I-95. I will not take the Merritt Parkway. I would rather sit for two hours on 95 than spend an hour on that. I’d rather drive Rt. 1 from Stamford to Madison.
Anyway, that’s happening. Tomorrow is the memorial service for The Patient Mrs.’ grandmother. I’ll be saying a few words, sort of MC’ing it, but not doing a full eulogy, which is probably for the best because put me in the right situation to talk about a person, place or thing, and I’ll just blah blah blah until everyone’s dead and they all need eulogies. What are we doing with the kid while we stand in the family cemetery in one place for upwards of 20 minutes? Let her run, I guess. “Don’t knock over any headstones,” and so forth.
We’ll be staying up there until Monday, which stresses me out but I seem to be the only one, so there you go. Next week? Of course it’s a Quarterly Review. I haven’t even been brave enough to broach the subject with The Patient Mrs. but had a moment of panic yesterday morning in talking about the plan for the week and nearly got chewed out for it, likely deservedly so. This morning I told The Pecan we could either brush her hair or cut it short so it didn’t need to be brushed and I got punched once in the arm and then had a fist pushed in my face. Just another breakfast with a five-year-old.
She’s at fairy camp right now, actually. That’s just this week, and is the first of a slew of camps The Patient Mrs. has lined up throughout the summer. It was a success. If you’ll recall, last summer, camp didn’t work and we ended up hiring the babysitter — which very much did work — and doing a lot of winging it. At least this time, we’re starting off with a success. Next week? Winging it.
I might bump the QR. It’d double me up on one day the following week but make life much, much easier otherwise and give me time to catch up on other reviews for stuff like Khantate and Lucid Vision. And if I put it off two weeks, I can add extra days… Oh okay. Things to consider.
However that plan shakes out, I wish you a great and safe weekend in the meantime. Thank you for reading, watch your head, be safe, tell someone you love them. All that stuff. I think The Patient Mrs. and I are going to post that podcast soon. Will keep you in the loop.
FRM.
