From the ashes of the Rosemaries a new band, Birdlands has arisen. Like the immortal Phoenix, I believe Birdlands could become an unstoppable force based on this bold, audacious, dazzling, and daring debut album. It is an extraordinarily mature album for a young band and sounds at times like the kind of record a band who has been around for years and lived to tell the tale of their rise and fall rock ‘n’ roll adventures. The obvious comparison is post-punk, particularly Public Image Ltd, but there are hints of psych, shoegaze and whisper it softly, pop here too. I do not know if any of the band have been to Art College, but the music sometimes hits me like a post-impressionist painting brought to life through sound, like Gauguin and van Gogh in a Seattle grunge band. I have always felt that if it is done right, weird is good and the intermissions on this album are certainly weird, but in a rather excellent way. Lyrically these songs contain sublime prose. Imagine an eclectic bunch of writers like Shelley, Poe, Keats, Lovecraft, and Burroughs using music as a tool to enhance and enrich their towering literary triumphs. There is not a duff song here, I think that previous singles “Gallows” and “3AM” are my favourites with “Dead Birds” and “Blue Lights” close behind. And what other band would have the wit and the balls to include their version of “(What Shall We Do With) The Drunken Sailor”, Birdlands do it with panache. It is a sardonically, dark, sometimes twisted album with a dystopian mood, and I bloody love it!
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