Review: Brook Pridemore – Metal Is My Only Friend

Hope seems to have become a byline buried deep beneath the earth. Hope is page ten stuff. Doesn’t sell. Do not inquire. Don’t ask. Get lost. People want the Colosseum. People want blood. Brook Pridemore will drink your blood.
They (Brook) say this and so many other beautiful things in their 6th album, Metal Is My Only Friend. This is an album of hope from the Brooklyn Bullet. With driving riffs and lyrical depth, Metal stands beautifully and spits love into the eyes of cruelty.
Brook plays most of the instruments on this album and it really shows their range of talents. The poetic simplicity of A City Without Limits! and the transition into the aggressive Cupcake Empire is enough to rattle anyone’s cage in the best possible way.

The album opens with the track Everything At Once, and it’s one of the best openers to an album that I’ve heard in a long time. Pocket Scheme is so goddamn cheerful and playful that you forget to listen to the lyrics. It’s my favorite kind of writing style, where the music is up and poppy and the lyrics are a bummer. It’s a beautifully crafted song and there’s more where that came from.
Brook has an honesty that is both refreshing and terrifying all at once. Their jokes are so personal and cutting that every listener will find an “oof” moment where their own defenses will have no choice but to drop, if not only for a little while. But this moment will stay with the listener after the fact. I find myself humming Brook’s songs to myself on the train or just walking around. The songs are infectious.
Metal is a gem of an album and it really shows Brook’s musical growth and development. Listening to their previous albums is a joy and a privilege, but Metal makes a lot of sense in these trying times. There is no point in watching CNN or FoxNews unless you’ve given up on life or if you’ve recently been lobotomized.
For the rest of the fully-brained, anxiety riddled individuals, I highly recommend Metal is My Only Friend by Brook Pridemore. And if you have the opportunity to see them play live, fucking do it. Brook tours relentlessly and spends most of their time while on tour booking the next one. Odds are they’ll be in your neighborhood soon. Won’t you please help them build their death-ray? If you can’t at least slip them a twenty for the record. Shit’s bangin’.