Deadbird - Twilight Ritual Review
by Mark Hensch
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Describing an album like Deadbird's sophomore effort Twilight Ritual is no easy task. For starters, it feels like the melancholy found at the bottom of Jim Beam fifth. Raw, hazy, and passionate, Ritual lashes out with the desperation of the backwoods life. It is struggle, despair, and stubborn hope. Beyond this, Twilight Ritual is a fantastic album.
Anyone familiar with these Arkansas natives will know the reason why. Since their inception in 2002, Deadbird have worked hard at creating an original sound in the crowded Southern sludge scene. The end result is a sonic identity half Eyehategod, a quarter Skynrd, and the rest a bunch of crusty punk mixed with countrified psychedelia. Deadbird's rare breed of sludge trips like barbiturates and stalls minds like a bottle of Nyquil chugged down on the bayou.
The album itself kicks off with "Into the Clearing," a song showcasing all these disparate elements. "Clearing" starts off with ponderous riffs and muddy howls, the likes of which sinks into deeply resonant clean chords. Out of this morass emerges syrupy, churning chaos, the likes of which establishes the album's earth-shaking grooves and stark melodicism. As the song drifts off into surreal, ghostly meandering, things violently shift back into focus with a noisy beatdown that is among the album's best.
The best, that is, until "Death of the Self" takes center stage. A jittery drumbeat backs frantic guitaring, the likes of which explodes into an animalistic shriek and wicked grooves. Alcohol-fueled gang vocals waft by in the choruses and the song sounds like a hard rock anthem played at half speed. The whole thing wears itself down into a rustic guitar jam before attacking with one final burst of primal aggression, ending things on a furious note.
"Rule Discordia," meanwhile, floats by with its mix of moody Southern sludge and plaintive wails. Buried with the roaring tumult there is some slick guitar noodling, both fuzzy and electric. On the whole, "Discordia" steamrolls listeners right until the very end, the likes of which comes from an unsuspected acoustic outro.
As if to spite this moment of quiet, "Feral Flame" erupts with its fiery combination of sludge's heaviness and punk's raw speed. Sinister riffs knock heads with stabbing tremolo melodies, the end result being dynamic power violence that is amongst the harshest music on Ritual.
As a respite from this emerges "The Riverbed," a song which begins by unfolding minimal fretwork and nearly inaudible fuzz behind soaring howls. The song patiently unravels, its apathetic tones soon being drenched in vitriolic rage.
All this leads into the album's title track, the fluid "Twilight Ritual." "Ritual" begins with whispering guitars before emerging like a rising moon in the middle of the night with some truly crushing riffs. A breakdown mid-song twists and turns like a shot Rottweiler, while moments of frightening solitude happen again and again. Though many bands can perform extended jam sessions, a song like this proves that Deadbird has most of them beaten.
Twilight Ritual is good for many things. One can drink to it, fight to it, or relax to it as well. Deadbird have taken Southern sludge and infused its rough-and-tumble demeanor with a new introspection that has done it wonders. Get this now.
Deadbird's Twilight Ritual
Into the Clearing
Death of the Self
Rule Discordia
Feral Flame
The Riverbed
Twilight Ritual
CD Info and Links
Deadbird - Twilight Ritual Rating:10.00
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