Night Birds
Mutiny at Muscle Beach
Fat Wreck Chords (2015)
It’s getting tough to find new things to say about Night Birds. They’re as great as ever with third LP Mutiny at Muscle Beach, it’s just that the sound hasn’t changed all that dramatically from day one. Album #3 is supposed to be when they go all avant on us.Their career has filled out nicely, with textural differences and a bunch of nuance from start to now, but the core remains the same: ‘80s SoCal hardcore fused with a horror-movie theme. It’s paranoid, highly anxious energy that keeps pummeling over a subtle fear of the unknown—in this case, that unknown is slowing down. Mutiny is twelve songs and 25-minutes long. That’s not to say it never lets up, rather that whenever the songs turn toward a melodic wind-down there’s an almost uncomfortable quick jump back into spastic energy. They can’t sit still even when they want to; and that’s why it’s so good: because, try as Night Birds will, it’s high octane, pedal-down from start to finish. The key is that they can throw in those changeups making it move forward instead of in circles.Starting with the rager “(I’m) Wired,” the album mixes vitriol and spite with a pent-up and … Read more
Mercy Killings
Snuffed Out
Beach Impediment (2015)
This is the second 7” from this new-ish congruence of Richmond, VA old-timers. The band flexes a pedigree that includes … Read more
Wrekmeister Harmonies
Night of Your Ascension
Thrill Jockey (2015)
The musical collective led by J.R. Robinson has always been inventive when it came to the subjects of their sonic … Read more
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Plays Prog Rock Classics
Cleopatra (2015)
At a point in the late '90s and early-to-mid 2000s, it seemed like every major artist had at least one … Read more
