Bird Names - Metabolism: A Salute to the Energy of the Sun (2011, Northern Spy)

RIYL: Pumice, Times New Viking, Deerhoof

Pop music, children’s toys, hair, bread crumbs, loose thread, door hinges without doors attached, small animals, medium-sized animals, animal mediums, wax, tin, broken combs, stray comb teeth, marble pouches, marbles, shingles in the front yard, matted grass, attic space, old speeches with folds in them, cursive handwriting, calculators, picture books about foliage, empty jewel cases, chair legs independent of chairs, stray mouth-teeth, plastic, baseball cards, small rocks, mice bones, wood, bubble gum, black dirt, rust, light fixtures, nets made of shoe laces, the inside of a baseball, cardboard, wet paint, garbage trucks, silt, smiling, talking, early spring, ants, insects, frowning, empty tree branches, empty bicycle frames, sun dresses, strawberries, sparks, light switches, burnt marshmallows, bird wings, sunken treasure, elliptical machines in junk yards, buttons for clothing, buttons for pressing, sticky notes, folded notes, love notes, socks, empty keyboards, picture frames, glass, rain, hands with fingers, Scotch tape, staples.

Bird Names - Kiss My Ring

Bird Names - Sings The Browns

Bird Names
Sings The Browns
(2009, Upset The Rhythm)
RIYL = Ariel Pink, Pumice, Smith Westerns

Bird Names are incredibly weird fellows which is part of the reason why they are incredibly awesome. Seriously, they’re out there. The second component to their incredible awesomeness is that they mix that weirdness with an unhealthy hankering for pop music. Sings The Browns, the follow up to the equally bizarre and equally enjoyable Open Relationship, is a continuation on the path to an aural pollution of the squawking, clunking, spitting and chirping variety. The variety of pop that collapses your ear drums with a rush of spittle wetted sugary pop goodness; something that these ears can’t quite get enough of. Listening to this album earlier could have easily landed it onto my 2009 year end list, but times are rough nowadays and my attentive gears have been slowing considerably to the multitudes of audio gold that is out in the world. Missing Sings The Browns is really the prime example of that. The garbage pale glory of their broomstick orchestra is just about a 300 million crayons high. What? That doesn’t make sense? Listen to Sings The Browns and it will. I mean it is hard to really go on about the band. Their nonchalant inventiveness and off-the-cuff hooks tend to short circuit any comprehensible discourse about the band. It’s their magic weapon and, possibly, their Achilles heel, because how am I supposed to sell you on this album when every time I try to talk about it marbles spill out of my mouth? But then again, who wouldn’t pay attention to someone spontaneously spewing marbles about in their excitement over an album. It’s like an oxymoron. Which, in a way, is what Bird Names is: an oxymoron. Their sound reeks of disinterestedness and childishness, a wacky disregard, but their end product, their songs, are filled with complex textures and a carousel of ideas that are incredibly smart and catchy. So there you go, possibly one sentence of actual critique. Sings The Browns is simply that good. (Watch out for Sings The Browns on vinyl, coming soon).

-Thistle

Bird Names - Open Relationship

Bird Names
Open Relationship
(04.2008, Unsound Records)
Verdict = Ridiculously awesome

A band like Bird Names only shows up on the radar a couple times a year, if that, so it is important that I catch my breath and fan myself before I start so as not to get too wildly out of control. By checking the release date, you’ll notice that this album has avoided me for the better part of year. That is probably for the best because if I would have got this in April I may not have listened to much else throughout the year. Hailing from the musically affluent city of Chicago, it’s a wonder that more dust hasn’t been kicked up over Open Relationship. The album is a colorful blend of art-damaged folk pop that never loses its charm amidst its brash juvenility. It’s jagged and playful, inventive and hook-laden and overall happily odd. Open Relationship’s fifteen tracks are packaged like bite-sized candy bars and then deep fried just for fun; each is a super rich exciting blast of fricasseed creativity. The great part about Bird Names is that they aren't content to simply rehash the same song fifteen times. Though they rarely stray from the two to three minute time frame, the band still manages to wrangle in touchstones that read like noise pop pedigree chart. From Pumice to Ariel Pink to Times New Viking to Animal Collective, Bird Names encompasses the best of each and more, creating a one-stop shop for all things awesome. Open Relationship is the kind of introduction that will have you scrambling to snatch up the back-catalog; sooo grood.

-Mr. Thistle