No intro. Get to it.
First Light
Ambient gong and birds. I need more ambient gong. A little
build and then quiet rustling…piano. This is a little bit movie score but it’s
a solid intro so I’m reserving judgement. If the whole thing is A River Runs
Through It: The Score then I should know by four songs in. I don’t like fishing.
Western Isles
If it’s a score, the movie just got way more interesting.
There’s a little bit of a western vibe but continuity from the birds in the
last song. I really like that the birds sound organic but then occasionally are
manipulated to become part of the rythm. I don’t totally love the drumming
style but most everything else about this is solid. Hmm…it’s turning into
Squarepusher. Which I like, but I don’t know fits with what was just happening.
At least there’s no fishing.
Still
That’s nice and clicky. CROW BEAT! BEATS BY CROW! Three
songs with birds makes me think this will continue all the way through and I’m
not opposed to that. Using organic sounds mechanically doesn’t get done very
often and it’s working well, especially on this song. It’s sparse and
melancholy but bounces between dark crows and light twittering. Now there’s a
cop show vibe. CROW COPS! ARRESTS BY CROW! And now it’s the finale to a
television legal drama? The last few minutes of this song don’t know what they
want to be. I think there’s even some klezmer in there.
The Lizard
Hey, more birds. They’re playing with a radio. Does all modern instrumental music struggle
with staying interesting through a full song? Just make your songs half as
long, ya dingus! Songs with vocals don’t just try something completely
different midway through and you shouldn’t either. I hope this song doesn’t
change tones/themes halfway through. That last song left me worried. Especially
since this is starting out with some nice static-y clicks and whirs. Dead stop
almost exactly halfway through…uh oh…wh || …no clue what I was going to say.
Maybe that the dead stop wasn’t so bad and it went right back to what I was
already listening to instead of A WHOLE NEW SONG like some other instrumental
acts like to do.
Long Orchard
Not that long. Only four minutes and 57 seconds. More birds.
They’re really sticking with it. They can’t back down now. Some people talk
very loudly. Louder than instrumental music with actual changes in dynamics.
VOLUME UP, BIRDS! The strings were a little annoying at first but between the
timpani/horn and the build of the string repetition this is one powerful and
catchy song. With a rooster at the end, because a rooster is a bird too.
Alyth
Are those tropical birds? I think they’re on fire. Or maybe
just next to a fire. Jazzy flaming jungle birds whacking a triangle with their
wings. This didn’t do much for me. It felt like dentist office music, if the
dentist office was full of burning birds.
Wingbeats
Well of course, song name! At some point those birds have to
stretch. Someone is ringing the dinner bell (triangle again?) for them. HEY
BIRDS, COME EAT YER PSEUDO-JAZZ! There are a lot of melancholy strings and SO
MANY BIRDS. This is pretty ambient and at 12 minutes it really better go
somewhere. I’m already wishing those wingbeats would turn into real beats. OK,
that seems to be starting. Wish granted. Strings coming in, drums, this is good
for working to...but is that a jumbo panflute? Whatever that breathy pipe thing
is I hate it but the rest of the song is solid. Those low notes are nice. Am I
really going to write sentence fragments about specific sounds for five more
minutes?
Nope.
Serpentine
That’s some serious drumming. There’s definitely a lot of
Flying Lotus happening on this album. Haha...nice. The bird and/or monkey calls
used as a harsh accompaniment to the crazy drumbeat makes me smile but also bob
my head. Shoot – it’s over already. One minute wasn’t enough for that song.
Stone
This is going back to the river. A River Runs Through It 2:
Jungle Bugaloo. So far none of this song is working for me. They’re using
pretty much the whole “stormy weather” sound effects CD. Yeah, this song can
stay on the movie soundtrack and get off of this album.
East London Street
BIRDS. Even though I can’t say it worked well 100% of the
time, I have to give them credit for sticking with the birds to the end. I’m
kind of getting burned out on some of these gimmicks though. The fake static
pulse was nice five songs ago but not so novel now. The strings are strong so
far though. A little bit of a Requiem For A Dream vibe. This can only end one
way. Are you ready for some bird degradation? There’s a tonal shift around four
minutes, but thankfully not a total song change. I’m still waiting for this to
go the way we know all bird addictions eventually go. About three minutes left
and I thought this was going to build to something major but it’s just been
random birds and cracking for a while now. I guess that’s all I get.
Final rating: Say
you have five birds, a bucket of flammable liquid, and five matches. You pour
the liquid on the birds and light the matches, reducing the birds to greasy
ash. If you divided the ash into five equal piles, this album is about as good
as THREE GREASY PILES OF BIRD ASH OUT OF
FIVE. It had the potential to be an even bigger pile of blackened toucan
but a few of the songs are pretty misguided and out of place on an
otherwise-cohesive album.
Download links:
Birdshare
Zippyshare
Omerta.is
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