Turin Brakes
Jack In A Box

THE REVIEW

When Turin brakes, beautiful music derails. There are inexplicable realities in the universe: the Bermuda Triangle, crop circles, all media in a democratic nation in the hands of the prime minister, the list is long but one question, above all, haunts my sleepless nights.
The question is one that passes before me day and night and I can't find an answer: what do the Turin Brakes mean? Why has a group "like this" managed to release not one (even Morandi's son released one), not two (even Tricarico released two, and I've said it all) but three albums, I say three, all strictly weak, flabby, and copied from various American folk singers.

Songs that are banal and repetitive with the usual C chord progressions, the usual 60s-style vocal harmonies, a few touches of modern sound (just to make people say "ah, but this came out now, though!"), a little polishing here and there and... et voilà. A cute little record that pleases young and old alike but in the end says absolutely nothing new. And never mind having dug up some old glory to sing on some tracks, never mind the various "LA-la-la" like the Beach Boys, but it's the overall project that's full of holes. And I wonder: but what is the project of these brakes of Turin? What are they trying to say to me/us? Why is an album like this so similar to a hundred thousand we've already heard? Who produces them and why? Is there real money to be made producing records like this? Is there an actual market demand? Much better are their contemporaries, Kings of Convenience, who at least openly declare their inspiration from Simon & Garfunkel of the good old days, yet they rework the melodies, enriching them with less conventional and banal arrangements than these Turin Brakes, delivering a far more valid product (certainly, still not very original...). Why, I ask myself, can someone explain it to me?