Music for Dead Birds are a Mayo and Galway based band that describe themselves as being a lo-fi indie grunge band. Their newly released debut album is less of a lo-fi indie sound, but more of an attempt at sounding like a late ’80’s or early ’90’s grunge band; and a very arduous attempt it is indeed.
There is nothing less pleasing to the ears than a band that seems as though they are trying their hardest to achieve a particular sound, and that is all this album seems to be about. The band appear to be channeling the likes of Smashing pumpkins, Pearl Jam, and perhaps even some of the harder bands of that era resulting in a evidently twangy and emotional songs, the poignancy of which seem forced. Take ‘Drop Skills’ for example, a poorly constructed song with mismatching guitar riffs and no vocals until towards the end. It is easy to see what they are trying to what many band’s have done and create an obscure melody piece with minimum vocals to show their musicianship is equal to lyricism and vocals. This can be a stroke of genius as we have heard from Pixies and Nirvana in the past, however, unfortunately for Music for Dead Birds, their musicianship does equal their other skills, it is painstakingly average.
Yet another failing of “The pope’s Sister” is poor mastering and production value of the entire 10 track album. Each track sounds distant, as though they had recorded it on a cheap system, or perhaps even a laptop. Laptop sound quality is only going to get this band the wrong kind of attention as nobody is going to sing the praise of a fuzzy recording in which the singer sounds as though he is standing at the opposite end of the room, with his back to the microphone. The worst example of the shoddy recording is undoubtedly ‘The Candle Maker’s sister’ in which the drum beats fade to an obscure fuzzing sound, the guitar seems unprofessional and the vocals are barely audible. It begs the question: How do bands that do not put the effort into recording an album, expect to be taken seriously?