Turin Brakes in General

A few months ago Turin Brakes came to perform in Birmingham at the Academy and I went along to see them. The Academy is quite a small venue, so the perfomances there can feel really personal. I already really liked the bands last album (The Optimist) and the day after the concert their new album was launched. Therefore the band played alot of old an new stuff. Music wise i really loved it, they played all my favourites from the Optimist and the new songs were even better. However, the reason why I wanted to write a review on this concert was not mainly because their music and songs were brilliant (which they were). What i wanted to say is that a few days before ...  Read the complete review

TURIN BRAKES, SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE, 30/9/02. A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to get myself tickets to the Turin Brakes sold out acoustic show at the Shepherds Bush Empire, London. Compared to a lot of bands the duo don’t seem to tour very often so I considered myself lucky to hold a ticket to the show, holding the band in very high regard as one of the UKs best, producing some of the most beautiful and emotive music around. Consisting of former choirboys, Ollie Knight and Gale Paridjanian, the Turin Brakes are a duo from London, playing acoustic guitars, Gale on rhythm, Ollie soloing over the top of his gentle and yet vigorous chords. ...  Read the complete review

If I could rate this album 4.5 I would, but it isn't possible. It's not quite 100%, but it's certainly too good to only be awarded 80%, i.e 4 stars. Anyway, let's get down to business. First of all, it's a very original album which will probably fit into the indie category, but the vocals add a slight element of American Country music. Great songs are found from start to finish. It kicks off with a nice, mellow opener in Feeling Oblivian and remains light and catchy right the way through to about track six (of twelve) before starting to get slightly heavier here and there. The best song on the whole album is ...  Read the complete review

Turin Brakes - 'The Optimist' - buy it now! I highly recommend this magnificent albumn to music lovers everywhere. I don't know much about music in technical terms but I certainly know that the fantastic melodies here are something special. There are 12 songs on the albumn, 12 of which are excellent! - they're all brilliant. In particular 'Mind Over Money' and 'Emergency 72' should be definite hits. Anyone who listens to the albumn would think this about every song but despite this it took me a very long time to find this albumn, and when I did it was in the 40s in the chart. Maybe I just missed the release, but it wasn't well ...  Read the complete review

I write the first piece on Turin Brakes with a bizarre sense of pride as I became aware of the band several months before thier recent explosion onto the music scene. I was lucky enough to hear their album before it went on general release and knew they were something special, although on first listen thought they were reaching but not quite getting to heights of greatness. It only took a couple more spins on my hi-fi to realise I was mistaken and they were and are a superbly soulful, acoustic duo with dazzling honest yet complicated lyrics and a wonderful road movie type sound. Olly Knights haunting yet commanding voice glides over Turin Brakes' music and ...  Read the complete review