GROOVE ART FEATURE
Brokestring & The Empty Promises
the upside of down
Ryan Seiler works out of Western Massachusetts these days, but you can hear in their music that their musical roots are pretty widespread. Going by Brokestring (& the Empty Promises), Seiler is reportedly working their way through a load of road-tested folk songs.
In 2024, Brokestring released Mourning In America, a gloriously efficient 6-song EP that came out in August, but seemed to anticipate the fact that things weren’t about to start looking up in the land of the “free” and the home of the “brave”.
Mourning hits a lot of the points you’d expect from a socially conscious, activist minded folk singer in this day and age.
“Don’t Go Gently” ends Mourning on a defiant, almost triumphal note - “I’m not the type to give up too fast or quit while I’m down or live in the past” they spit, before declaring “I won’t go gently”.
But for us it was “Interesting Times” in particular that seemed to anticipate the prevailing mood of the timeline that lay just ahead of its August release.
Perhaps The Upside of Down is what it was always going to be, or perhaps it was a conscious decision, but either way it’s not what you might have expected from a new record if you are familiar with Seiler’s online presence.
The truth is, all the lunacy and misery in the world is impossible to escape, and Brokestring never shies away from speaking to it in online spaces. It’s actually sort of refreshing that this record, rather than taking the obvious and expected tack, feels deeply personal and intimate - like we’re getting a glimpse at one human life, which serves a reminder of the most important political and spiritual truth of all - that every person is a universe to themselves, and that it’s hard to look closely at another human being without looking in a mirror.
With that out of the way, this is a phenomenally good set of songs. You can tell that these songs have lived a life, been stretched out on stage, and earned their place on this record. From opener “Cynical Heart” we are invited to get to know our narrator, and you’re left feeling like you just want to stumble on Brokestring playing in a bar and buy them a beer - or a seltzer, or a virgin Bloody Mary, perhaps more appropriately.
On “Past, ___, Future” we get the first hit of that bar-spitting that was so endearing on Mourning’s “Don’t Go Gently” … there are substantial hints of Robert Earl Keen mixed into Brokestring’s vocal delivery.
“Wichita” will get stuck in your head quickly, with its downhill momentum that halts at each chorus just long enough to catch your breath before dropping you back on the hill. “I got out of Wichita … alive” is a payoff made no less satisfying by the fact that you can just feel it coming.
There’s something sly and clever in the name The Empty Promises, like Brokestring is playing with us. Because this record, like Mourning, is in fact just Brokestring, their guitar and harmonica and a whole lot of gritty lyrics that feel entirely authentic.
By the time you get to “Paper Cages”, you’ll think you have pretty much taken the measure of this album. But this song is both gorgeous and haunting, and if it weren’t for the fact that it was included deliberately on this record, it would feel like something we perhaps weren’t supposed to witness.
“Sensible Sedan” is a killer tune I’ve come back to over and over again. From that first little guitar lick, to the chorus where Brokestring echoes Mourning’s “Interesting Times” as they sing “troubled times call my name…but you can’t slow down in a passing lane”. There isn’t a bar worth going to where this wouldn’t be an immensely welcome sound to discover as you walk in to whet your whistle.
In the home stretch we also get the plaintive “Anxiety” which luxuriates in an extended harmonica intro that, for all its howling, feels a lot like the author’s anxiety is draining away in the sheer act of making this music. Throughout the verse I kept expecting that harmonica to come roaring back after each stanza, but instead, we get Brokestring wailing “I can’t breathe!” before they finally give us what we’re waiting for. I admit I’m not wild about harmonica most of the time, but it’s deployed so simply and effectively here, and recorded and mixed so well, that I found myself on the edge of my seat waiting for more.
“I’m still here and I’m doing the best that I can” intones Brokestring on the promisingly titled closer, “To be continued…”
I know they weren’t referring to the album itself, but when you hear that line you can’t help but note that it’s a hell of a humble declaration for someone who’s now got 2 spectacular folk albums under their belt.
SUPPORT THIS ARTIST
FOLLOW ON SPOTIFY
ADD ON APPLE MUSIC