Review: Brunch – DOGINYA

Brunch
DOGINYA
Self-Released
Street: 07.04
Brunch= Gang of Four + (Kyuss x just a bit of Sweet) 

Brunch’s manager reached out to me after checking out my review of Wild Guess by Robber Robber because both groups emerged from the diverse indie rock town of Burlington, Vermont. Like Salt Lake City, Burlington has an abnormally high concentration of inventive, grimy and young bands for an area that has no more than 45,000 people living there at any given time. Because of that I feel a kinship with them. The peak of local music coverage in Burlington also seems to have hit at the same time as SLUG’s in the 1990s (shout out to both Good Citizen and Rapid Fire, may you both rest in piece) and just like SLUG, Vermont has its bastion of underground culture coverage in Big Heavy World. All of that stuff is nice and good, but what about the band? Is Brunch any good? The short answer is yes! The long answer is below.

Brunch reaches deep into the dirty laundry basket of English punk to pull out the oft-forgotten Gang of Four’s Entertainment and twists it around for an audience that is in search of more winding guitar solos than discordant picking. The tone on the opening track “RADIO JESUS” is nearly a carbon copy of “I Found That Essences Rare” and even has its own pause for  singer Mason Kosman to put on a slight accent to sing “Electric / Magnetic” in between cycling breakdowns. To me, this track takes a lot of what of made the late ‘70s and early ‘80s period of punk interesting: its attitude, its friction and a dynamic vocalist who screams Dadaist lyrics meant to grab at images instead of story, complete with a crowd-shouting exit to the song. 

Many of the same observations are true for “STATIC” and “TRIGGERFINGER,” but both tracks bring up the tempo and the fuzz, wearing their stoner rock influences on their sleeve. “TRIGGERFINGER” especially sounds like an early ‘90s Kyuss track’s raw and fried out vocal performance from Phil Bern. (A note: Brunch takes a very democratic approach to performing by sharing vocal duties between Kosman, Bern, Ayden Flanigan and Cameron Mincar, allowing each to have their shining spot). It’s right in that sweet spot of chaos and restraint that these four guys seem to feel the most confident and dialed in. What differentiates them from other post-punk/hard rock groups is that you can hear the group having fun in the process. As a group, Brunch digs what they’re doing a lot, and it shows, especially if you take a peek at their Instagram, @brunchtheband. Don’t assume the rest of the album dives into the same sound throughout and in new ways; in fact, it actually abandons the subgenre all together on “DANCING RAW,” a grimy, ‘80s glam-rock inspired track with a fun and harmonizing chant chorus. Taking fistfuls of sounds from ELO and Sweet, it is a bit out of place in this EP, but it does highlight the versatility of this band and their influences. While different from the rest of the album, this track is great and weird. 

The PR email I received described Brunch as “punk but Gen-Z,” which has proven to be very accurate. While this band is very young, I think they have a strong and unique sound and I hope for them to continue on down the path of post-punk and hard rock, continually finding new ways to bend genres. –wphughes

 Read more nation album reviews:
Review: Robber Robber – Wild Guess
Review: Eminem – The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace)