Broken Records: Let Me Come Home

Broken Records hail from Scotland, which has produced two of the more anthemic indie-rock bands of the moment in Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad. The resemblance isn’t difficult to hear. Though frontman Jamie Sutherland has opted to lose his accent when he bellows, Broken Records’ formula is still very much in line with those bands, borrowing liberally as well from the dynamics of Arcade Fire and even more so, 4AD labelmate The National. In fact, much of Let Me Come Home, its second full-length, unfolds like a workshop in recent indie-rock anthemcraft: lofty guitar textures, vintage string flourishes, and dour low-end. But things end up working backward here. The opener “A Leaving Song” rides a martial pace to a King Kong-sized chorus that, like the sadly inert “The Motorcycle Boy Reigns,” buckles under the weight of its own turgid sonics. And while “A Darkness Rises Up” does reach its mark, the songs that abandon the clamor for quiet are actually the most memorable. “I Used To Dream” is a mood piece whose haunting, string-and-piano pulse is equaled in beauty only by similarly plaintive closer “Home.”