Review Summary: The Blood Brothers' early days were, without a doubt, their most forgettable stage.
By the time the new millennium came around, the U.S. was flooded with post-hardcore bands playing self-advertised shows and recording low-quality music in basements. Among those many, many bands were The Blood Brothers, which consisted of Jordan Billie, Johnny Whitey, Morgan Henderson, Devin Welch, and Mark Gajadhar at the time. By 1999, they've released a self-titled 7", two split singles, and a couple of compilation tracks. Over time, these early independent releases would become out-of-print and very rare to find. In response, The Blood Brothers grouped all these old songs and reissued them all as a little CD called Rumors Laid Waste.
Out of their entire discography, Rumors is there most straightforward and in-your-face. The EP starts off like a kick in the teeth with tracks that I can only describe in three words: Fast, Loud, and Aggressive. Songs like "Gagged in a Casket" and "Boy Armageddon" are some very fine examples of good hardcore punk; They grab you with a steel grip and they do not let go. However, the same could not be said for the last half of the record.
By the time you reach "While The Party Was Kissing", you already know what to expect. During their early years, The Blood Brothers essentially used a song writing formula: Loud guitars + Two vocalists who sound just like each other + Really dumb lyrics. That is another flaw with the EP, the lyrics. On "1, 2, 3, 4...", Jordan, (or at least who I think is Jordan), sings, or rather screams, about how his school is an "open cesspool with ugly faces", which makes me, as a listener, feel like a whiny 13-year-old.
As said earlier, these recordings were made back when the band first formed. Over time they've built on their post-hardcore style and added tones of Industrial, Math rock, Indie rock, and even Art rock. They've also improved as individual musicians, as vocalists Jordan and Johnny developed on their voices and made them unique and distinguishable and how bassist Morgan Henderson started to play individual bass lines rather than following the guitar riff. I would recommend their full-length LPs, (specifically Burn, Piano Island, Burn and Crimes), to anyone who is new to the band first, then listen to Rumors later.
