Singles

Bromheads Jacket - Wooley Bridge/Leslie Parfitt

05/12/2005

Rating: 4/5

With the success of the Cribs and Artic Monkeys, it seems as though there's a new trend in British rock: scuzz-punk. Dirty, lo-fi, wittily observant rock that name-checks everything from American cities to cellphones while paying homage to bands like the Jam, the Clash, and Madness. Bromhead's Jacket is the latest to jump on this bandwagon, with reasonable success. “Wooley Bridge” comes off a punkier early Who, lamenting the fact that “she won't listen cause her Samsung's ringing!” This is defiantly DIY, sounding like it was recorded on the cheap, still stained with blood from last night's brawl and all the better for it. An immediate crowd-pleaser, “Wooley Bridge” has the kind of charisma most estate-kids would die for.

“Leslie Parfitt” borrows the lyricism of Parklife-era Blur, but the music falls flat in a way “Wooley Bridge” does not. Perhaps it's the overdose of ska in the sha-la-la chorus, or the out-of-place and out-of-key vocals. But in either case, these two songs show a promising if uncertain future for the messy, scruffy, and deliberately dirty Bromhead's Jacket.