The Sun and the Moon

What can The Bravery do for indie rock music?

Indie rock is one of the most movable and boiling genres of today. After years of constant progress it is still in the process of formation. This style lives and develops due to young bands first of all. And being one of them, The Bravery is also a part of a general process. Their debut album was quite a promising thing in 2005. Even despite that fact that the band was accused being The Killers copyists The Bravery sounded good enough to receive worthy verbal attributes as "next big thing" and "a band to follow". In fact, 2005 was a very fruitful year and gave birth to many loud indie debuts: Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and all of them decided to release their sophomore attempts in 2007. After such mutual indie forays you can't help thinking about common tendencies of the genre. Overall, the bands, except Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, tried to generate a more serious image. It is hard to say that the result was ground shaking yet nevertheless the general appearance of indie music became more confident. So what can The Bravery do about it? Will they be of any help for the genre? The answer is rather yes than no, but they can't do more than all the rest. Their new album The Sun And Moon is a worthy continuation of the debut album and in the general context The Bravery sounds like a self-confident band.

The Bravery's approach to the music became more serious

The whole thing about The Bravery is that they are really talented in replaying other bands' ideas. And if their debut album was full of similarities with The Killers, The Smyths and The Cure than this time around The Bravery's leading songwriter Sam Endicott expanded the list of influences with Duran Duran and The Clash. It all sounds somehow akin but the general trend of their music still belongs exclusively to indie rock of a new century. The tendencies of the genre can be herd everywhere, in vocals, melodies, performing manner and arrangements. Personal characteristic features of The Bravery are straightforwardness and accessibility of their songs. Let's take the first track Believe – a clear-cut guitar intro, agreeable melody, legible song structure, in a word everything is just the way it should be, the only thing that stands out is guitar solo, it sounds too heavy metal for pop-rock music. The best tracks here are Every Word Is A Knife In My Ear, Time Won't Let Me Go and This Is Not The End. The songs are strong enough to assert that The Bravery's approach to the music became far more serious, the youthful ardor departed in the favor of comprehension.

Every track on the album has its own catchy melody

Overall The Sun And The Moon is no worse than the debut album at all. The problem that many admirers of The Bravery might come across lies in the fact that band began playing something more serious. Fun and fervor are still here but they look like attributes now not like the basis. The very last track The Ocean may serve as the best evidence for it. This is a slow acoustic ballad, which sounds really deep and serious. Here the band discovers its potential in a full measure. Although the song doesn't really suite the context of this post disco/post punk album, it helps to understand many hidden moods of all previous tracks. However, this is not the main point. The thing is that despite the apparent simplicity the songs always absorb your attention and make you tap your foot or nod your head in time, every track has its own catchy melody. As for the album's place among indie releases of this year – the album fits in with the concept quite well. It won't become a loud breakthrough but it will play its role in genre's establishment.