Track Listing

1. Ghouls
2. Let's See It
3. After Hours
4. Lethal Enforcer
5. Impatience
6. Tonight
7. Spoken For
8. Altered Beast
9. Chick Lit
10. Dinosaurs
11. That's What Counts
12. [CD-Rom Track]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39856 in Music
• Released on: 2008-05-13
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Album Description
Limited Edition bonus CD includes 7 live tracks from Union Chapel in London, November 23rd.

Amazon.co.uk
Brooklyn's We Are Scientists make it to their second album, Brain Thrust Mastery, a man down--drummer Michael Tapper departed the band in late 2007-–but with a new sound and a refreshed ambition. While 2005's With Love and Squalor marked them out as The Strokes' preppier cousins, lean guitar-indie with arch lyrics and driving tempos, Brain Thrust Mastery has more than rehash on its mind. It's an album that's both bigger and poppier than its predecessor--see gleaming first single "After Hours"--but also eager to experiment and branch out. The opening "Ghouls" echoes fellow Brooklynites TV on the Radio, a synthetic mesh of ticking rhythms, dubby bass and multi-tracked vocals, frontman Keith Murray singing: "We all recognise/That I'm the problem here", while "Lethal Enforcer" is a sly piece of '80s pop revivalism that somehow channels the smooth synths and echoing drums of Phil Collins without quite tipping over into kitsch. There's the occasional dropped ball here--"Spoken For", a serene, Tropicalia-tinted love ballad is interrupted around the mid-point by some unnecessary, pompous flying-V action--but on the whole, this is smart pop music that's clever but crucially, seldom clever-clever. --Louis Pattison

About the Artist
We Are Scientists shocked themselves and impressed many others with their 2005 debut With Love & Squalor, which sold over 50,000 copies in the US on the strength of dancefloor standbys Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt; It's A Hit; and The Great Escape, as well as nine other songs that, to all appearances, people also liked.

The band spent 2007 at weight-loss camps, alcoholics' dry-out facilities, and a race car school, yet has also found time to pen, record, and road-test their sophomore offering, Brain Thrust Mastery. If W.A.S.'s first album had been far, far better than it was, and of a far more mature style, and if they had then released a limp, unenjoyable second record, and if Brain Thrust Mastery were actually their third album, it would be hailed as 'a return to form', as 'equal to -- in many ways an improvement upon -- the monumental debut'.

We Are Scientists began, in spirit, at Pomona College, in Claremont, California, in the Fall of 1997, when Keith Murray and Chris Cain met at a viewing of Dawson's Creek held in the latter's dorm room. Though at the time they couldn't suspect any of the details of the coming decade, it was apparent to both of them that they would spend many long years riding buses together -- some kind of pro-sports, they assumed. In 1999, freshly graduated and moved to Berkeley, CA, the two started We Are Scientists with little more between them than a dream, a couple of cut-rate instruments, and $1.4 million in lottery winnings.

Nine years later, the band has long-since relocated to more fashionable New York City, seen many countries their parents swore to them were 'myth, accursed myth', and finally dated girls. In the Fall of '07, long-time drummer Michael Tapper retired from the band, and We Are Scientists added a new drummer, plus, in a fit of accumulation, a fourth man on-stage.

Customer Reviews

Different... but different is good in this case.
This new record isn't the We Are Scientists we were used to. The band has really grown and developed their sound. There are not many bratty pop songs compared to past releases, but rather many brooding, moody tracks... Much more complex as well.

At first the new sound was jarring, but over time it's really grown on me, and that's usually a sure sign that an album has legs. The melodic hooks are still there, the punchy drums remain, they're just steeped in a lot of additional sounds and riffs. Some tracks like 'Let's See It' still start with a strong catchy guitar run, but the vocals are more sing-songy.

There is more of a synthpop influence in the music as well. Something along the lines of a happier New Order with a bit of The Smiths in the melody. Tracks like 'Lethal Enforcer' are straight up new wave.

'Brain Thrust Mastery' is an excellent deviation from the mainstream, and a sign of even greater things to come.

Amazing! Buy Brain Thrust Mastery now!
Upon buying the latest We Are Scientists cd, I had only watched a few of their hilarious music videos on YouTube. I really liked the songs so I decided to buy the cd. I am glad I did as the whole cd is awesome. I love each and every song. It's is not a cd where you have to skip the occasional song. I have since then purchased With Love and Squalor as well. I highly recommend Brain Thrust Mastery! You will not be disappointed!

Back to the Laboratory
When you're a cult band with a critically acclaimed but low selling major label debut, the first words heard on your sophomore album probably should not be "We all recognize that I'm the problem here." But then again, new wave revivalists "We Are Scientists" aren't working on the usual formulas. It makes the nerdishly titled "Brain Thrust Mastery" both interesting and unlikely to succeed. Given the struggle similar bands (Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys) are having keeping their profiles established in the USA, "Brain Thrust Mastery's" suppression of WaS' With Love and Squalor debut spunkiness seems likely to doom the band to cultdom.

There are still hints that We Are Scientists - down to core duo of Keith Murray and Chris Cain - could still whip up a Hot Fuss worthy record. Both "Lethal Enforcer" and "After Hours" could give Brandon Flowers a run for his money, while ballad "Spoken For" suggest WaS may follow The Bravery into the experimental territory of The Sun And The Moon. "Enforcer" is such a perfect recreation of 80/90's pop that it could have been on the Pretty In Pink Soundtrack.

That's still not enough to make up for the lack of any real growth here. "Brain Thrust Mastery" is a good but inconsequential second effort that needs a killer follow-up, or We Are Scientists are going to find themselves like most nerds...wondering why Molly Ringwald always took the handsome bad boys while wanting to just stay friends with you.