Brine
Story vs plot
Harbour, Sea
The 90s art-rock movement is very much alive on "Story vs plot". As if by mere accident, harmony arises from the rattling of guitars and the deep moan of the bass on opener "Bashful". The half-spoken, half-sung vocal style finds an appropriate home in this medium of musical expression as the drums tirelessly beat on. Names like Sonic Youth and Pavement easily slip off the tongue when trying to describe what has slipped out of the stereo speakers, though there's also a Pixies-like playfulness and a Velvet Underground drive. Sebadoh wouldn't sound too oddly placed were one of their tracks to precede or follow a Brine composition on a mixtape. "Make it to Berlin" shatters much of these preconceptions however, sounding far more like something that would have come out of Britain in the 90s than from the other side of the Atlantic, and so Blur and the radio-friendly tracks of Elastica spring to mind. And this balancing game plays out beautifully as the record continues. "A high wire walking" and "Bathtub revisited" are among the standouts on a quality album, although the breakdown/ending of "Mirrors" may take top prize -- an organic building of guitar lines and drums that eventually blurs into a wave that crashes and breaks. An album that celebrates the possibilities of rock music as much as the 90s scene it was birthed from, "Story vs plot" is very much worth tracking down.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
