OFFICIAL: http://blackbluebirds.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/BlackBluebirds
Written
by Jason Hillenburg, posted by blog admin
Black
Bluebirds is a Minneapolis based power trio featuring the musical and
songwriting talents of Daniel Fiskum working alongside band mates Simon
Husbands on guitar/vocals and Chad Helmonds on drums and vocals. Additional contributions
from guests Jessica Rasche and Patrik Tanner are important to the success of
the release as well. Their ten song debut Like Blood for Music is an impressive
and fully conceived effort with a powerful, plain-spoken lyrical sensibility
complementing its musical artfulness. The band clearly owes a debt to bands and
artists as diverse as David Bowie, melodic metal, and David Byrne, but those
influences never come off as imitation – instead, Fiskum and his band mates are
quite adept at transmuting those influences through their own skills and
experiences into a collection that’s not particularly cheerful, but intelligent
and often ultimately triumphant. Like Blood for Music is another fine offering
from a Minneapolis outfit, long a hub for musical creativity and Black Bluebirds
are poised to join the upper echelon of musical exports from this Midwestern
mecca.
Rasche’s
voice provides an impassioned and recurring counterpoint to Fiskum’s own on the
opener “Love Kills Slowly”. This is a real kick in the door way of beginning
the album as Black Bluebirds latch onto an impressive and striding hard rock
track for the collection’s initial salvo. It finds its mark. Simon Husbands, as
well, unreels some particularly tasty lead guitar bringing a further flourish
to the performance. There’s a bit more control exerted over the album’s second
song “Strange Attractor” and Rasche returns to parry dramatically with Fiskum’s
deep, gravitas-laden vocal. Fiskum’s keyboards impose themselves more on this
song than we heard with the opener, but their inclusion does nothing to dilute
the aural muscle they are clearly intent on flexing. Black Bluebirds embraces a
more progressive, softer edge with the song “Life in White”, a study of
addiction’s power, and there’s a hint of grandeur surrounding the song’s
atmospherics that makes it especially potent for listeners. Fiskum has a mildly
stentorian vocal style, but it’s never so melodramatic or self-indulgent that
it mars the performance. The heavy presence of acoustic guitar in the song
marks it as a much different proposition than any of the earlier numbers.
The
potentially portentously titled “House of No More Dreams” never taxes listener’s
patience. It, naturally, opts for a near apocalyptic guitar workout with
thunderous drumming laying down a heavy groove underpinning the song.
Smatterings of keyboards emerge from the mix. Rasche’s backing vocals return on
the song “Soul of Wood” with impressive results and the uptempo thrust of the song
is ideal for Husbands to spark with some memorable guitar pyrotechnics. Like
Fiskum and Helmonds on drums, Husbands’ never pushes his playing into heavy
handed territory and his embellishments on this song make it more torrid, more
memorable. The steady groove established in the opening of the album’s finale “Legendary”
gives Fiskum’s keyboards a solid foundation and Husbands adorns the track with
some almost painterly initial touches from his six string. The song, despite
only running four and a half minutes, clearly aspires to be an emphatic final
statement for the collection and succeeds. Black Bluebirds’ Like Blood for
Music is a mature, yet energetic and imaginative, work that swiftly solidifies
the band’s position as one of the best acts to emerge from the Minneapolis
scene in some time.
