Brethren and the Evil Empire started as a group of three teenage friends in the mid-nineties...under the moniker of Enchantment until 1996 at the latest, when the band became simply Brethren...Some of the early live shows were played under this name...It was about 1998 when they started using the "...and the evil empire" part...The band rehearsed heavily at the Alamo recording studio for the next few years and played a limited number of gigs at long-gone venues like the Ozone and the USA Cafe in the local Las Vegas area...as well as shows outside of the city limits, like one for the Boyscouts of America up at Mt. Potosi, which became a case of boyscouts acting like maniacs (cool stuff) and there was also one in Kingman, Arizona at the House of sound (A BIG production by many accounts)...The band started work on it's debut album around this time and didn't get it out until 2002...Shortly after this, drummer Ryan left the band...Leaving the band without a way to play live shows anymore and forcing it's remaining members into the studio without a drummer...The end result was the Plastic Factory...The album is more subtle and stripped down than the first effort, but also takes the band in a new and unexpected direction...Putting "melody before loud"...After that, the Too Much Fun Club was was released, followed by 2007's Green On Silver...following that, a still-unofficially unreleased group of songs, were recorded in between that CD and the new album, which we'll get to in a second...It was to be called Brown On Gold at first, but became Excesses in Violence and Greed...It was a record that was going to go up against the powers that be at the time and felt a little "too late" by the time it was completed...So eventually it was scrapped...It was time to start over again...Which brings us to the new album being released on www.CDBaby.com on 10/10/09...The album is a fantastic journey through 21-different tracks of sadness, love, anxiety, fun, experimentation, honesty and lies...There's acoustic songs, there's loud songs, there's strange songs, there's piano ballads, there's punk, there's rock n' roll, there's songs about life and death...Basically, you never know where Brethren and the evil Empire's going to hit you from next...and did we mention that you be able to get "Is That Why You Brought Me All the Way Out Here to the Edge of the Universe?"(long title...huh?) for less than five bucks? 21-tracks, over an hour's worth of music and a price that can't be beat?...We'll see you at CdBaby.com on the 10th of October!
Read more...