Birds Of Avalon; Fuzzed-out, Freaky, and Free

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 23, 2007 2:12PM

Birds Of Avalon's debut, Bazaar Bazaar, hits so many sonic reference points it can tend to be an exhilerating and dizzying experience at first. It sounds like Sloan gone psych. No, it sounds like Led Zeppelin gone pop. No, that's not quite it either. Black Sabbath meets The Beatles?

In fact it's none of those, but the truth lies somewhere in the middle of those comparisons. What appeals to us are the runny maple syrup melodies and the meandering guitar lines that coalesce into thunderous sledgehammer precision right when the riff needs to be heaviest. We've always been suckers for heavy guitar rock we could still whistle along to n the shower, and this is just the concoction to keep us tapping our toes while satisfying our sweet tooth.

Slowly the faders draw up and the tone crackles into distortion as the opening track "Bicentennial Baby" breaks into a gallop of chugging guitars. Suddenly the band chunks it up and deftly intjects their sweet vocal melodies into the heavier groove of "Horse Called Dust." Further along we get submerged into some psychedelic meditations. And this is how it goes for 43-minutes as Birds Of Avalon take us on a brand new trip down memory lane.

The band is in town to play a free (did you see that, totally no strings attached FREE!) show at The Empty Bottle tonight and if their live set is even half as good as their disc then we're in for a hell of a night. This should also serve as an excellent excuse to check them out early before they come through town again next month with The Fucking Champs.

That way when all your friends about gasping after the cool opening band that night, you can smugly sit back and say, "Oh yeah, I saw them back before they were big."