There is precisely nothing brutish about The Brute Chorus. Folky: yes. Quirky: certainly. Thoroughly entertaining: definitely.
Chateau, a song apparently inspired by a dream (indeed if we are to believe frontman James Steel then it was during this dream that Chateau was bestowed upon him by a singer in a toilet stall) is as shadowy and abstract as you might expect.
Musically The Brute Chorus tread the lineage of the blues and mix it with the skewed pop of The Coral or The Zutons. Lyrically, however, is where The Brute Chorus shine. Chateau takes the fairy tale of Red Riding Hood and really runs with it, making an already unpleasant story twitch with uncomfortable detail. If Nick Cave ran a nursery then the lullabies sung might sound a little like this and the children would be fidgety with acute lack of sleep.
Twinned with the fine folky stomp of The Cuckoo & The Stolen Heart, Chateau provides an introduction to a band that could well surprise a few people this year.
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