MUSIC Blood Brothers combine hard-core, progressive rock in new CD

By MATT PEIKEN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Just when you thought punk rock was mired in four-on-the-floor, three-chords-and-out formula, along comes the Blood Brothers to rip punk a new orifice and make it interesting again.
Consider the Seattle band's infectious third disc, "Burn Piano Island Burn" (ArtistDirect Records), the birth of progcore punk -- the melding of hard-core intensity with the compositional intricacy of progressive rock. The record is loaded with tempo jumps and mood swings, psychotic blasts and whispered ambient passages.
Johnny Whitney, who shares and splits vocal chores with Jordan Billie, sees the disc as the result of maturity, spontaneity, the influx of nonpunk stimuli and a drive to find new creative territory.
"This is the first record where Jordan isn't screaming all the time. We also wanted to add more melody," Whitney says. "When we started out, it was much more bare-bones punk but with two singers. Since then, the music's gotten a little crazier and, over six years and with each record, it's been about refining the reasons for having two singers."
Good combination
On "Burn Piano Island Burn," Whitney's blistering tirades and Billie's relatively calm, grounded tenor play off one another almost as alter egos. That schizophrenia brings personality into every song, and given the vocal extremes, there's a surprising amount of melody. Coupled with a musical daring and dexterity rarely seen in punk, the Blood Brothers have secured their own little niche in the genre.
Some might not hear the punk, at all, if not for the group's roots. The Blood Brothers emerged in 1997, after the last gasp of grunge, as teen punkers with energy to burn. They found immediate, enthusiastic audiences in and around Seattle, primarily at a teen club called the Old Fire House, in nearby Redmond, Wash.
"When we started in high school, we were listening to a lot of punk and hard core, and we've gravitated away from that as we've gotten older," says Whitney.
The group is scheduled to perform in Cleveland on July 13.