Big Brother are a three piece skacore punk band from Toronto, Canada. The band formed in April of 2013 and released their debut EP, Kids Of The Sun, in October of that year. Since then, they have been very busy writing songs and have released ten more releases including the brand new EP Hate Week which was released on August the 23rd. Hate Week is the Big Brother release that first introduced me to the band after discovering it on Bandcamp. Here's what I thought of it.
Hate Week begins with Freedom Is Slavery, starting out with a short audio clip before launching into this blisteringly fast political number. The song talks about never being properly free as people are always watching you. On my first listen, Big Brother had me thinking about the much missed Against All Authority with raspy and aggressive vocals that really grab you and actually make you care. The second song on Hate Week is titled Eye In The Sky. Featuring Andrew and Dave of The Filthy Radicals, Big Brother show off more of their ska sound, particularly in the song’s introduction. After a very bouncing start, things get more intense when it's time for the vocals to come in. Eye In The Sky tells the story of an attempted bank robbery, first giving the reasons for the crime as doing it for his family, failing with the robbery and then being shot dead even though they were unarmed. It's a sad tale of the desperate things people will do to look after the people they love. Ordinary Man slows things down slightly. It's more of a chugging kind of song that tells a story without really stretching to hit any big highs. The song is about how even the person you think most unlikely could very easily be struggling in some way and remembering things aren't always as they seem.
The fourth song, Stay Golden, sees Big Brother bring the pace back up. It's a relentless one minute and forty-six seconds of wonderful skacore music that will get you skanking and moshing in equal measures. Stay Golden is about taking ownership of all your problems and doing your best to keep on going even in the darkest moments. The penultimate song on Hate Week is named Unwanted Guest and features Andrew Younger of Joey's Armageddon. On the surface, the song is about your house being infested with bed bugs and how horrible that is. I suspect, however, that deeper down the track is about mental health and how some bad thoughts find a way of crawling into your head despite your best efforts to prevent it. Hate Week is finished with Nobody Cares which features guest vocals from Crowley GB aka Ill Logic. This finishes the EP with some fury as the band go through a song talking about how people only look out for themselves these days. The song builds in energy throughout and manages to fit in a lot despite only being one minute and forty-three seconds long. I really enjoyed how it sounds as if there was at least three different singers on the track. This could have been because of how the vocals were delivered or because there were actually three singers – either way it sounds great. This was probably my favourite song on Hate Week and is a superb way to finish the EP.
This is a great release. I don't get to listen to much of this particular style of ska punk music very often so it's fantastic to listen to this and it be really good. Clearly Big Brother are a dedicated and hardworking band and, based on this EP, they have some real talent. I'm excited to go back and listen to their extensive back catalogue now as well as seeing what's next for them.
Stream and download Hate Week here: https://bigbrotherto.bandcamp.com/album/hate-week-ep
Like Big Brother here: https://www.facebook.com/BigBrotherTo/
This review was written by Colin Clark.
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