Tweak Bird
Tweak Bird
Volcom

The brothers Bird, the oft-shirtless duo from Illinois or outer-space, I can’t remember which, have returned with a proper full-length (as opposed to 2008′s seven-song Reservations), self-titled and much ado about everything. The knotty fuzz Tweak Bird is able to strangle out of drums and a baritone guitar is impressively grotesque; pair that with gamma ray vocals, some saxophone and flute, an appropriate obsession with Marc Bolan, and the knob-noodlin’ skills of the Deaf Nephews (Dale Crover of Melvins and Toshi Kasai of Big Business) and you get ten heavy, spacey, progressive pop blasts influenced by all the necessary evils. Tweak Bird’s design is such that they eliminate the need to linger, spoof glam over jam, and even though they offer two of their longest songs to date (“A Sun/Ahh Ahh” and “Distant Airways”), they still microwave the hell out of the stoner mandate and stomp all over the stardust. This album is as weird as it is wonderful — an outlier, a rare breed.

Check out the videos for “Lights in Lines” and “A Sun/Ahh Ahh” from Tweak Bird!

#14 Big Business – Mind the Drift

With the addition of guitarist Toshi Kasai for Mind the Drift, Big Business became a three-piece, but they really made a name for themselves as a two-piece, so consider this another notch in the beard for the mighty duos. Now, I don’t just love Big Business because I share the same last name with bassist/vocalist Jared Warren, or because Warren and drummer Coady Willis are now fixtures for the mega-awesome kings of stoner fuzz, Melvins, but those reasons certainly don’t hurt. No, what I love most about Big Business is that, musically speaking, they portage the terrain of mountainous sound with crooked backs and bleeding hands, stopping only to feast on the raw buffalo carcasses scattered along the way. I’ve always dug the crushing, and at times melodious, sludge n’ fuzz of Big Business and I still dig it, even if they have added a guitar to the arsenal.

Listen to “The Drift” from Mind the Drift!

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