Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

You cannot choose family, it is a readymade solution to helping you in sour times, it is the possible agony to be expected when life takes the sad or unexpected turn; family is shrouded in the playful and sometimes the jealous, without it though nature and society become off-balance, you can fall and your sister will pick you up, but quite often there is nothing more helpful at your back than knowing and saying to yourself that the Brothers Of Mine will be watching, ready and waiting for action.

For many bands, losing a member of the group could be seen as a sign of the family breaking apart, it is an age-old problem that has beset many of the greats and will always continue to do so, and yet for Liverpool’s Brothers of Mine it has had a seemingly opposite effect. The love between the members is still rampant, there is no cause for the rumour mongers to sharpen their pencils and lick the end of their pens as if this was headline of the year, instead what the band have made clear, as they performed for Shout About It Live at Constellations, was that this was business as usual, that this is family in all its rich voice and dynamic reasoning.

It is the dynamic that has always captivated the audience and the listener alike, a dynamic of the raw and unfiltered, and when caught live, it is one that just bursts at the seams with the feeling of being alive, of never backing down. To have that extended persona, to relish in the heat of the battle and leave the onslaught at the gates of the next venue to bring the music to, is one that greets the heart and makes it jump for joy, a spring time congratulation, the exploding heat of summer all in one package.

Opening up their set with Waves and She, Brothers of Mine stormed through their set with the agility of a jaguar, lithe and spirited, but also with the calculated awareness of the lioness stalking down the rhythmic heart of the gazelle as it munches on the Savannah, unaware of the dynamic and fleet-footed beast baring down on her.

With songs such as First Time, Say Say, Productive, Careless and Wasted all leaving their natural stamp on the Constellation crowd, the new slim-line threesome of Brothers of Mine once more endeared themselves on the day, this is not a time to be a gazelle when faced with such energetic fervour, this is the time to run with the pack and with the Brothers of  Mine.

Ian D. Hall