Birds of Avalon Birds of Avalon
Bladen County Records
New horizons for Raleigh, North Carolina’s Birds of Avalon, who have parted ways with their old label, Volcom, and their old vocalist, Craig Tilley. But the Birds were always a band about the future anyway, so slight changes to their course shouldn’t really alter their ultimate destination, and they don’t, as this latest self-titled release proves (an album they’ve been sitting on for about two years). Combining experimental-era Beatles, 70s prog rock, and current hipster hullabaloo, Birds of Avalon finds the band on a freer, further plane, expressing a shift from the classic rock intensity found on earlier albums like Bazaar Bazaar toward an exotic, analog psych-pop sound full of accessibly translucent melodies, deep and heavy grooves, and fluent nerd-speak. Meaning it’s just weird enough to work, and works wonders where wanderlust and stardust are concerned.
Just a year and a half after releasing the awesome Static Tensions, Kylesa is back with Spiral Shadow, a layered and darker take on their three-headed, four-armed, crossover brand of Savannah sludge metal. Bulldozing stoner rock convention with an alt-psych approach to riffing that swirls around you like a tempest of exotic head winds, the eleven songs on Spiral Shadow contain calculated Mastodon-like breakdowns, Torche-minded melodies, and a pure, state-sanctioned heaviness also shared by fellow Georgians Zoroaster and Blacktusk. Five albums in and Kylesa seem to be hitting their meteoric stride, and Spiral Shadow is as chaotic, complex, current, and crucial as they come.
This isn’t so much an album as it is a full-length concert movie with soundtrack. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track down the DVD (their online store only accepts credit cards and I don’t have one, which is great for staying out of debt but shitty for instances like this), so I haven’t actually seen the film, which apparently consists of live footage and “vignettes that abstractly depict themes of corruption, destruction, and rebirth” while the band “portrays the Three Kings who are the silent watchers of their world.” Seems pretty groovy at any rate, which is Dead Meadow’s specialty, and the soundtrack certainly delivers in that respect. A mixture of old, live songs and new studio recordings, Three Kings is a psychedelic time warp of fuzzy, exotic, Zeppelin-esque boogie that bends and shines like a rainbow in a dope fiend’s mind. Stand-outs for me include the new song “That Old Temple” and the old classics “Seven Seers” and “Beyond the Fields We Know,” the album’s longest running, free-flowing, freak out jam. It might be a bit of a weird one for newcomers, but long-standing Deadheads (or maybe is should be Meadowheads) will surely dig this hazy collection.
Check out the video for “That Old Temple” from the Three Kings movie!
Birds of Avalon
Kylesa
Dead Meadow