Review Summary: And they call it Crunkcore...
BrokeNCYDE's line-up consists of:
Se7en - Lyrixxx/Screams/Gangster Raps/Production
Mikl - Vocals/Hype Man
Phat J - Synths/Back-up Vox/Growls/Raps
Antz - Lights!!!/Fog/DMX
(information quoted, without alterations, from their official MySpace page)
In Sweden, we have an abbreviation called “p12”. P12 stands for “pojke, 12 år” (boy, 12 years old) and this abbreviation is usually used on any male human acting particularly immature, often, but not always in relation to sex. A p12 usually writes in an immature, whiny manner and often uses multiple exclamation marks, caps lock where unnecessary, annoying abbreviations (hlo I hvnt bin her be4) et cetera. On teenage communities he asks all the girls for webcam. The typical p12 is usually between 11 and 16 years old, but older and younger p12:s do of course exist. So, why am I talking about Swedish abbreviations when I rather should be talking about the album? Because if you ever are in a situation where you have to describe Brokencyde with but one word, “p12” is definitely that word, no competition. But we will return to that later.
Brokencyde are a crunk band who mixes in elements of screamo and electronica into their music. Different keyboard loops and simple electronic beats carry the clean vocals provided by Mikl and high pitched screamz courtesy of Se7en. Phat J provides vocals here and there, but he is mostly back-up. These keyboard loops are really the simplest of the simple, often not using more than five different notes to create a melody that is repeated throughout the song without much variation. At best, these loops are pretty catchy but extremely forgettable, at worst they are DAMN ***ING ANNOYING. Examples of this are
2Drunk 2Drive that has a fairly catchy staccato organ chord melody and
BAND TEE! that plays an incredibly irritating whistling loop throughout that just drills it way into your skull, threatening to make you die from internal bleedings in your brain. It is clear that this is intended to be party/club music, but I can imagine those horrible whistles being played at loud volume at a party… uggggh.
And BAM, there I just ran out of good things to say about this ***ing joke of a band. If the synths are mediocre or fairly catchy at best, this is the only redeeming thing that I can ever think about the music created by this band. The vocals and lyrics ruin anything good that ever came out of Phat J:s synthesizers. Somebody figured that it would be cool to mix the usual clean vocals (auto-tuned) with screamo vocals. While being a fun idea, this does NOT work in reality, especially since Se7en is a horrible screamer.
We get our first taste of Se7en’s screaming abilities in the intro track,
GCOD Intro. After a brief introduction of the three note keyboard loop that is going to be played throughout this song, Se7en enters. For some reason he sounds very angsty, whenever he draws breath he sounds like a sobbing teenage girl, and his screams mostly sounds like high-pitched “eeurgh, heeurgh”:s.
GCOD Intro is suddenly cut off for no apparent reason, and the album moves on to
BREE! BREE! . When I listened to
BREE! BREE! I thought Se7en sounded like a panicking piglet, and actually the screamed chorus lyrics are:
“Don’t cut, don’t cut, don’t cut this pig!!! BREE BREE! BREE BREE!”. It can’t be good for your voice, screaming the way he does, and that is probably the reason for him sounding so angsty, he is probably worrying about preventing his internal organs from coming out of his mouth. Unless his vocal cords take collective suicide first, of course.
While Mikl at least can sing somewhat, he uses a very annoying tone, he really does sound like a p12 begging a girl for cam-sex, and the atrocious lyrics reinforces this image. Imagine the lines
“And who you playing//You aint gonna pull her//You think you're like me//But I am so much cooler//I got that face these girls will go insane for//You think you're like me//But you aint got no game, boy” said in a whiny manner over synth loops with another guy screaming incomprehensible stuff here and there, and you got a pretty clear picture of Brokencyde’s sound.
Oh, and now that we are talking about lyrics... If Se7en’s screamz are horrendous, the Lyrixxx he provides actually manage to be even worse. And no, I am not saying this because I want to bash this band or anything, but (here is that abbreviation again) if you take pure p12 and attempt to distil it into poetry, these lyrics are what you’re gonna get. Lines such as “Girl you make my pee pee hard” and “Girl I'm too drunk to drive. Will you take me home tonight? You can be my sugar dumpling muffin baby punkin pie!” feature in every song, because that is what EVERY song on this album is about. Drinking and sex.
(…) I will knock you down on your knees. And make you lick my penis up and down, up and down...
Up and down, back and forth, I'm making you my whore. Up and down, back and forth, girl you will be my whore...
I'M SO FUCKED UP! I'M SO BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH! WHAT THE FUCK! I'M SO FUCKED UP!!!
Need I say more?
Summary
I am fully aware of that I might sound very biased, but, this band really is as bad as I am saying. I downloaded this with an open mind, I really couldn’t believe that this was as bad as people had said to me that it was. While it can be very funny while listening to it for the first time (you get that “they must be JOKING” sensation) it quickly wears off. Do Not Download This. If you still feel that you really need to hear this, go to their MySpace or something ( [url]http://www.myspace.com/brokencyde[/url] ).
So, combining mediocre synth loops and electronic beats with the vocals of a whiny p12 and a horrible screamer and atrocious lyrics about drinking and sex, this band really gives an immature impression. Your fourteen year old daughter might like it, but anyone else? Probably not.
This Message Edited On 05.06.09
