I am so grateful that Sam reached out via email to submit their (at the time) unreleased album for a review. First off, Birds? Is a band from Philadelphia, PA that describes themselves as "upbeat, prog and math rock with indie and emo vocals".
Birds? is made up of four members:
Sam Stewart- Guitar, Vocals
Jon Miranda- Bass, Vocals
Chris Swantek- Guitar, Vocals
Nate Gittelman- Drums, Vocals
Aside from some demos in 2023, "Pecking Order" by Birds? is the band's debut, including 6 tracks, released November 8th, 2024.
Bird Law:
The opening track to this album is titled "Bird Law" and it starts with an iconic staple of Midwest emo music, a sample from "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" of Charlie and Dennis arguing over the legality of owning specific birds. I love the band's dedication to upholding a bit that relates to birds with titles like "Pecking Order", "Bird Law", and "The Migrant". After the sample, we are blasted with synchronized pounding from all the instruments as we are introduced to the album with an instrumental track. This track includes incredibly impressive work from all the band members, insanely fast paced drumming, fun guitar licks, chugging bass and rhythm guitar with a great doomer-type tone, and some very dynamic left/right panning that I'm a sucker for. This track really shows off everyone's musical chops and gets you really excited for what the rest of the album holds.
Serendipity:
After the intro track, we are immediately greeted with vocals right off the bat,
"Beneath the sunrise in the East
We're all just falling leaves
Take things as they are
Not what they're meant to be"
With somewhat clean tone guitar strums before a catchy bass line joins in and introduces the drums as the opening chorus ends. The guitars get a boost of distortion for a brief instrumental portion. Before the first verse of vocals begins, all the instruments stop in unison and leave a reverby echo, an effect I was quite fond of. This song follows up "Bird Law" and continues the trend of this band showing off all their skills. The coordination and orchestration between instruments is phenomenal, everything works together really well. The vocals are defined but don't shy away from finding intriguing effects to utilize throughout the track. "Serendipity" is the first of three tracks that include features from other vocalists. Nearing the end of the song, there is a call and response between Corey Lutz and Sam with a fuzzy, radio static effect on their voices. It's a really cool track that starts off with a lighter load than where "Bird Law" left us, but progressively builds itself up heavily by the end.
Inner Summer:
This song starts with a super sick guitar riff reminiscent of early 2000s punk. I can only describe it as "Sum 41 if they could actually play guitar" this song once again utilizes the left/right speaker differentiation that I love so much. The percussion starts with a steady beat of the tambourine as the bass drags out and swells while the intro guitar riff repeats, ending in a drum fill on its own before all the instruments get intense and the vocals come in. For such a punk-rock riff, the vocals come as a surprise by being very peaceful, airy, and easy to decipher. At any given time, the instruments are doing so much work that you almost become desensitized to their skill, there is so much going on behind the vocals that from beginning to end you are wrapped up in the awe-inspiring instrumentation. The way the song transitions from verse to chorus, chorus to verse, verse to verse, there's always an inventive style and clever ideas coming to fruition that make this track anything but redundant or dull. Michael Trycieckyj offers vocals under the name "Trycheck" on this track and contributes greatly by matching the stylings of the main vocals while also being unique enough that it stands out, but blends, in a beautiful way. I apologize, I will probably end up repeating myself a lot throughout this review, but this is another great track with a ton of energy, super dynamic, and overall just an awesome song.
The Migrant:
This song starts with a bang but a much more, noticeably, melancholy sound than any of the previous tracks. The sad sound doesn't last very long once the drums pop off with another fill and a blast of thunderous chugging and emo guitar licks steal the show. Sharing similarities with "Bird Law" there is a lot of distorted and heavy pounding but an outstanding ability to change stylization rapidly and frequently. With less than a quarter left of the song, the vibe shifts entirely with what sounds like bongos and keyboard that sounds almost like it's straight out of a Charlie Brown musical number, only to be rejoined by the high-pitched squealing of the very heavy, math rock guitar riffing.
It's A Tuesday:
This song is the only track from "Pecking Order" that was previously released as a demo, this time around it features Justin Kripas. This one starts with distant, solemn vocals and very traditional emo guitar. The music starts building and the soft, layered vocals shift into a shout, "But maybe, but maybe, it's just a Tuesday for you" as all the instruments collide at full speed and the old-school emo guitar becomes more familiar to modern midwest-emo/math-rock. Throughout this album, there has been plenty of points where the vocalists display their abilities, but I feel like the vocals started off very clean but progressively, throughout each following track, gets more confident (maybe confident isn't the right word) assertive, perhaps aggressive, but overall just matching the extremes of the music playing behind it. By no means do I bring that up as a bad thing, I've thoroughly enjoyed the vocals this entire time, I think it was somewhat of a breath of fresh air to hear very heavy instrumentation with vocals that are actually skilled and pleasant to listen to. Majority of the time, this type of music with the loud, deep, and distorted guitars would warrant a gruff, throaty, scream vocal that can be off-putting to people who aren't active fans of the genre. As someone who IS a fan of emo/punk music, I was very excited to hear the vocalists take on this style, and it pays off tremendously. One of my favorite lyrics from the entire album is
"A prodigy of second guessing
What’s left of me, traveling aimlessly
Writing poems on the back of receipts
For the things we didn't need"
I absolutely adore the relatability and poeticism of "a prodigy of second guessing" and then the legitimate reference to poetry with "writing poems on the back of receipts". I could sit here for hours trying to explain exactly why this resonated with me so much, but because I'm also a "prodigy of second guessing", I don't know if I'd actually be able to come to any definitive conclusion. There is something about it that is so beautifully written about it and I'm still trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that struck my nerves so viscerally. I will definitely be screaming along to that lyric at full capacity, full volume, alone in my car for years to come. About halfway through the song, the instruments subside for a bit, leaving room for some subtle drums and a memorable bass line, but it also includes a sound that I can only describe as a UFO whirring in space. It's super cool and a great inclusion in the background of the mix. This is such a perfect emo song, seemingly taking inspiration for every decades' different iterations of the genre, there was a little bit of everything and it was so masterfully spliced together, I really loved every second of it. So many opportunities for the instruments to do their own thing but also work together so seamlessly and really compliment each other.
The King Of Second Chances:
The final track of "Pecking Order" is another fully instrumental track; sharing aspects of everything we've heard prior, but still allowing itself to be purely original and stand on its own. It starts with a distant chorus swelling, and includes more reverb and a lot of unique sounds and instruments that weren't prevalent in the rest of the album. It's really fun hearing the band just jam. Usually I'm more focused on lyrics and don't typically listen to straight instrumental songs, but there is so much to love with this song, the production value is off-the-wall amazing, there are parts of the song that give off the vibe of a soundtrack to birds soaring through the sky (pun 100% intended), like I can feel the wind through my hair while I'm listening to this. For an almost 4-minute-long song, it FLIES (okay, that one I apologize for) by. The song ends so beautifully with a choir of "la la la"s and as it fades out, it is absolutely hilarious to be greeted with the "It's Always Sunny" audio sample from "Bird Law" when the album starts over.
Overall thoughts? I absolutely loved this album. The skill of all the bandmembers made me feel incredibly insecure about my own musical abilities; I have never claimed to be a "good" musician, but I've been playing guitar for over twelve years and I have to accept the fact that I will NEVER be able to do what these guys do. Truly incredible work, it is clear that they put everything they absolutely could into this album, it is an unbelievable introduction to this avian-themed band. I fear that some of my descriptions of the songs were vague or didn't fully encapsulate the vibe of this album, but to be completely truthful, I don't think there are enough words in the English dictionary to convey the sounds created. I really think this is an album that needs to be listened to if you are in any way, shape or form, a fan of alternative, emo, prog rock, math rock, hardcore, or any subgenres along those lines. "Pecking Order" is Birds?' debut album and I implore you to go show them all the love you can give! When they're selling out arenas, you'll want to have the bragging rights to say "I've been listening since the beginning!"
Thank you so much to Birds? for submitting their music, it was an absolute blast.
You can stream the album and find all their links HERE!
( https://linktr.ee/birdsband )
Related Posts
