Super 8-Bit Brothers | Brawl

The End (2010)
By BARRY THOMPSON  |  January 13, 2010
2.0 2.0 Stars

1001_8bit_main

It's easy to forget how annoying certain pop-culture artifacts were in their heyday. Consider the anthem from the original 8-bit Super Mario Bros. Perhaps it fills us with nostalgia for simpler days, when the savage vistas of Grand Theft Auto were inconceivable. At the time, I thanked my lucky stars for the invention of the mute button.

Ergo, aspiring to reproduce vintage video-game music is a questionable endeavor, and it's also the bread and butter of the Chicago geek-geared dance-rock outfit Super 8-Bit Brothers. It's not even a new or interesting idea, and Tub Ring's Rob Kleiner and Kevin Gibson should know better.

On the second offering from their Super 8-Bit side project, preoccupation with an ill-conceived shtick often gets in the way of their being any less irritating or banal than the source material. If you can make it past the abominable opening track, "Computer Space Sirens/Computer Casanovas," it's not all bad — "Skillz" could pass as a Mindless Self Indulgence B-side, and "Roll It Up" and "Geeks No More" are not wholly unpleasant.

Maybe Brawl will appeal to people who get excited about anything related to video games, but I have already rescued Princess Toadstool from Bowser. It was a fleeting, hollow triumph.

Related: Airman punk, The future is now, Beyond Dilla and Dipset, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Technology, Music,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
ARTICLES BY BARRY THOMPSON
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   DARK DARK DARK | WHO NEEDS WHO  |  September 25, 2012
    Back in 2010, the loosely Minneapolis-based quirk-folk jamboree Dark Dark Dark wrote songs that felt like they were about being outside (even if they weren't).
  •   AMANDA PALMER LETS GO OF ALL RESTRICTIONS  |  September 05, 2012
    Just when hemming and hawing about the future of money in music had grown dreadfully redundant, leave it to Amanda Palmer to resurrect the dead horse and prompt the American square community to ask, "What the fuck is Kickstarter, who the fuck is this frequently naked lady with painted-on eyebrows, and why did the Internet send her a million dollars to record an album?"
  •   INTERVIEW: THE RIFFTRAX CREW REVISIT ANOTHER 'CLASSIC'  |  August 07, 2012
    MST3K took its curtain call in 1999 after 10 years on cable, but the show's end ultimately liberated host Mike Nelson and the revolving cast of cinematic satirists.
  •   BRUTE-Y PAGEANT  |  August 01, 2012
    When professional wrestling gets brought up in the mainstream media, it's almost always because something awful happened.
  •   RIDING THE WIND WITH NEW ENGLAND'S GLIDING GURU  |  July 25, 2012
    Jeffrey Bernard has been jumping off mountains and soaring wingtip-to-wingtip with eagles, hawks, and falcons for longer than many of you have been alive.

 See all articles by: BARRY THOMPSON