Hanging out with the band before, between and after their sets, I found out that they got their name from an old pulp fiction novel of the Shadow, where the criminals calling card was a broken French Napoleon coin. I guess the French coins could be easily broken in half then or something. Anyway, it’s a cool name for a band and it gives a sense of intrigue as to what they’d sound like. More than pleasantly surprised, I was impressed with their musicianship. Creatively the guitar solos were chords more than one note screaming, which is an innovative approach and I greatly appreciated it. The effects on the guitar made the sound simultaneously new and vintage, bringing forth memories of Clapton, as if backed by the Doobie Brothers more than Cream, though one would immediately think Cream when thinking of a Clapton three piece band. This is not to diminish the bass playing. At times it approached Jack Bruce, though less blues and more rock. If they were to cover a Cream song, I would have to say it would best be “Badge” as they would not only do it justice, I could hear them taking it and really making it their own.

Musical performance is normally about the songs and that’s the thing that got me the most about Broken Napoleons, their songs. They have a strong body of work of their own and they chose the cover songs they did very well. I’m finding that I’m enjoying the CD and it’s not too different from their own live sound. Having recently experienced a discrepancy between a band’s live sound and their recorded sound, I am quite aware of this being an issue and really prefer a live sound anyway. Broken Napoleons recorded sounds very much like their live performance (as well as vice-versa) and that I can only attribute to the enthusiasm they have for the work as well as the effort they put into it all, whether it’s live or in the studio. Their songs are well composed, sometimes funny other times thought provoking and really all are enjoyable. Are there huge hits in there? Not that I heard. Is it a CD I could listen to again? Yes. And again. Are they a band I’d go to see live again? Without hesitation.

My only question now is, are they “the” Broken Napoleons or just Broken Napoleons?

These guys know their instruments.  Their first set seemed rather light on the bass guitar, but the second set allowed L. Rico to really shine with his bass.  Watching his fingers fly through the song “Get out of Georgia” and then an instrumental piece which may or may not have been part of that song as well was fairly amazing.  Joe is also incredibly talented tossing out extended guitar solos on most every song.  It was also nice that the guitar solos were different for each song, sometimes including reverb but not always.  Additionally, in more than one song they creatively include random bits of silence at times giving a feel for how well they play and listen together as a band.

The mix of covers and original work was really good, though also because their original work is good music to listen to anyway.  The lead singer should figure out a way to put the mic closer to him or at a different angle, so that when he feels he needs to look down at the guitar, he can also continue singing without loosing a half of a word… with that being said, maybe a wireless mic would work well?  As far as the sound goes though, no one instrument was over powering another, and we could hear and understand almost every lyric (except the ones that he sang away from the mic).

Definitely check these guys out, their new album is full of fun songs that are very enjoyable to listen to live.