Review: Elliott BROOD, Keeper

A deep dive into darkness and light, Elliott BROOD’s seventh album, the almost absurdly accomplished Keeper, is chock full of red herrings, songs that scan as bright on the surface but lyrically track something much heavier. Case in point: “Stay Out,” which finds our heroes confirming they have “heathy kids and a beautiful wife” but emphatically stating “I don’t want to go home” as buoyant, acoustic guitar dapples sunshine across the foreground. 

Effervescent opener “Bird Dog,” with its chugging, locomotive vibe and closer “The Coast,” which brings unexpected but entirely welcome synth to this otherwise unabashedly roots-y affair, goalpost Keeper’s sonic division — chipper in its first half, dejected in its second, with enough subtle variations throughout to keep things interesting.

It’s not entirely clear what was going on in the lives of BROOD members Mark Sasso, Casey Laforet, and Stephen Pitkin when they hatched the gloomy “A Month of Sundays” but smart money says bourbon wasn’t far from reach. Similarly, the arid, introspective “Oh Me” shoehorns a lifetime’s worth of pain into a few spare stanzas that land like a left hook. Ditto the vivid, remorseful, and wildly cinematic “Merciless Wind.” Plus, it makes such a huge difference when the players can really, truly play, you know?

Keeper is released September 18, 2020 on Six Shooter Records.
Listen to it here.

Official lyric video for "Bird Dog" by Elliott BROOD