Digital Leather's Warm Brother

What started off as a solo project of multi-instrumentalist Shawn Foree, eventually took on a life of it's own and became Digital Leather's debut album. Entitled, Warm Brother, the album is a record of dark lo-fi noisy synth pop that comes off as something recorded in a psych ward while under heavy sedation. Digital Leather is a "group," that's all about contrasts and that holds true from the strange name of the band, to the songs that haunt Warm Brother.

Warm Brother, is a distorted swirling mess of pop that sounds like it was recorded using broken instruments and fed into a broken 4-track Tascam deck that broke again in the middle of the process. Despite that sounding like an absolute train wreck of a record, Warm Brother isn't (yet another contrast). Instead, it's an absolutely raw, uncompromising record that uses all that noise and potential destruction to it's advantage and shapes it all into something that's ridiculously melodic despite being recorded on something approaching a $100 budget. It might sound like something your little brother recorded in the bathroom, but unlike your brother Digital Leather are actually GOOD.

Warm Brother is one short, snappy, and spastic record that straddles the dark side of humor with out becoming too cynical. That's what makes this record so much fun to listen to; Digital Leather knows how to tap into the sarcasm well and then leave you hanging for you to figure out the rest. At times funny and at times heartbreakingly honest, Digital Leather is an emotional rollercoaster that will have you in stitches and in tears. "Homesick for Terror," being a perfect example of this; the song sounds like a broken ballad but lifts itself out the dirt and turns into something far cooler than just another love song.

Digital Leather is a raw unpretentious group that thrives on it's lo-fi-ness. For that we are thankful because one hazards a guess if Warm Brother was all hi-fi it would lose much of it's impact. The album (and bands) raw, unnerving approach is what makes them so darn good. This is a record that relies on it's darkness and purity to win you over and much of Warm Brother does just that. This is an album that both fans of She Wants Revenge AND the Magnetic Fields will find extremely listenable and when you think about it, that only further plays into the fact that Digital Leather is a study in contrasts. Well done!