Oh, Brother

As lads across the country sobbed into their chinos as they mourned the split of Viva Brother, for most of us it wasn’t at all surprising. Early on they were dubbed as one of NME’s latest muses alongside The Vaccines, when they shared a cover spread and it was this issue of NME that first drew my attention to the 4 gob shites under this guise.  As I gazed at the cover open mouthed, I didn’t recognise them as the ‘Britpop Revivalists’ as they were so repeatedly named but as former members of Wolf Am I and Kill The Arcade, a band who would often frequent the pages of Kerrang!

Maybe this is exactly why I always found their time as Viva Brother to be totally unbelievable and contrived. Nor did I sense any passion for the style of music they were desperately attempting to emulate, just like a pastiche of bands before them. There wasn’t anything exciting about this new venture. I found their tracks catchy and hummable just as much as the masses but it was palpable that their desires lay with fame and money, which of course being as vocal as they were, is what they got.

Reverting back to my first encounter with the band, as I stood in W H Smith's scanning the pages of their spread, all I felt was a sudden rush of distaste. Not only did they come across as pugnacious and arrogant, it became ever more clear that this was some kind of persona created purely to agitate and rouse a reaction. As they lay into everyone’s favourite flame haired songstress, Florence Welch and everyone's favourite dullards, The XX all I found myself shouting was, ‘Who do they think they are?’

Artists' can change and they can adapt. I have no qualms about that.  It can be refreshing when a band deviates from what you'd expect. Just take the latest offering from Kate Nash as an example.But it’s the way that Viva Brother appear to have flitted so seamlessly from one musical direction to another. I hear you scream, what about Skrillex? Well, he’s actually good at what he does, isn’t he?  

Wearing dark round shades, and clad in long sleeved shirts fastened to the top button, you would never have guessed that it was Lee Newell. Especially not when comparing to his earlier looks, with arms mapped out with vibrant tattoos,tightly hugging jeans and a choppy haircut, you’d have guessed that he was now desperately trying to brush away any remnants of his pop punk past which was probably the best thing he ever did. Even though it was under the guise of Viva Brother that they were most commercially successful.

It was after seeing Wolf Am I perform 5 years ago to an empty Static Gallery in Liverpool that I thought there wouldn’t be any longevity in their musical paths. I was right about Wolf Am I. But I thought no more of them until we come back to that NME cover and how wrong was I?

So if for anyone the split for Viva Brother is still fresh and the devastation still hard to bear, then today offers some fantastic news, well, sort of, or it could be unsettling for others. Ex frontman, Lee Newell has a new project, and he’s not going it alone. Lovelife are a duo formed by Newell and former Mirrors member Ally Young. According to the Brooklyn based duo’s Facebook page they joined on 10^th April – the same month that Viva Brother split so they didn’t wait around. And again, he hasn't got the knack of selecting a relatively competent band name, I came across another Lovelife in my search for them. You’d have thought after their previous name changes they would’ve done a little research!

This new venture will probably be as short lived as Kim Kardashian's second marriage to basketball star, Kris Humphries. But then again, I was wrong about Wolf Am I, so they’ll probably reinvent themselves again embodying something entirely new later in the year. I’m hoping for a bit of Witch House.