Pigeons - SI Faustine

Pigeons
Si Faustine
(2010, Olde English Spelling Bee)
RIYL = Broadcast, Forest Swords, Green Gerry

Olde English Spelling Bee is cranking it up a notch this year, delivering heavy on the serpentine murk. They already dropped that illustrious Forest Swords LP, and the new Julian Lynch is psych-pop wonderful, and this…this. Following their namesake, Pigeons are beautifully feathered and dirty. A lilting flutter of female vocals twisting and harmonizing up towards the clouds, occasionally taking roost upon mucky windowsills and oily industrial silos. That’s where Pigeons fly. Si Faustine, the group’s debut (I think? Lazy), is a sort of psych-folk animal, not necessarily a carnivore, but certainly untamed, free roaming entity with a heartbeat and a collapsed lung. Si Faustine carries pastoral guitars in one moment, like an animal caught in the frame of a National Geographic camera lens, and off into caterwauling horned dirges, digging through an alley dumpster the next. Though, still, everything is framed artistically, gorgeous in its white, black and brown hues. Oh, and red. This has been one of the biggest surprises for me this year. So much depth and diversity twisted up in a praline dropped on the ground and dusted off. It’s too good not to devour again and again.

-Thistle