{"id":497,"date":"2011-04-25T05:22:33","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T10:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=497"},"modified":"2011-04-25T05:22:33","modified_gmt":"2011-04-25T10:22:33","slug":"album-review-the-bewitched-hands-birds-drums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/04\/25\/album-review-the-bewitched-hands-birds-drums\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Bewitched Hands – Birds & Drums"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea of a songwriters\u2019 collective has always fascinated me. Band dynamics being what they are, most groups have only one songwriter; the alternative is prone to the \u201ctoo many cooks\u201d scenario. Aggregations that have great potential (on paper at least) often flame out due to clashes of egos, or a general imbalance of creativity. The Grays<\/strong><\/a> are a good example of this.<\/p>\n

Moreover, most groups would be happy to have even one<\/em> decent songwriter (or singer, for that matter). Having more than one almost seems greedy. So when a group comes along that seems to make the songwriting collective concept work, I sit up and take notice.<\/p>\n

The Bewitched Hands<\/strong> are a six-piece group from France. Their album Birds & Drums<\/em> offers thirteen tracks that are varied in style and delivery, yet they hold together as a cohesive whole. \u201cHappy With You\u201d has a gauzy, dreamy jangling feel halfway between\u00a0 <\/span>Crowded House<\/strong><\/a> and The Polyphonic Spree<\/strong><\/a>. Earnest acoustic guitars give way to a Revolver<\/em>-styled backwards guitar solo. And impressive dynamics keep the listener on the endge of their seat; rarely has a band done so much with what\u2019s essentially a tow-chord song. It\u2019s a brilliant album opener that sets the tone for what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n

The title track is built atop a clip-clop rhythm; its call-and response vocal arrangement suggests a more accessible (and better-sung) rethinking of the Velvet Underground<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cAfter Hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heavily French-accented vocals reminiscent of (of all people) Feargal Sharkey<\/strong> are a centerpiece of \u201cUnderwear,\u201d a song that weds a Kinks<\/strong>y \u201cSunny Afternoon\u201d aesthetic to a thickly chorded powerpop vibe; like most of the songs on Birds & Drums<\/em>, it features a surfeit of good musical ideas. \u201cSo Cool\u201d (featuring the same singer; the liner notes don\u2019t indicate who\u2019s who, or who does what) straddles a poppy feel with a wide-eyed, manic, punky delivery.<\/p>\n

\u201cCold\u201d is a speedy tune that wouldn\u2019t be completely out of place on a H\u00fcsker D\u00fc<\/strong> record; using an approach similar to that of Bob Mould<\/strong>, it yelps and pummels along yet bolts the whole affair onto a catchy pop melody. \u201cWork\u201d goes somewhere else entirely: its stuttering vocal line calls to mind Shelleyan Orphan<\/strong> or Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and its minimalist, celestial instrumentation reinforces that effect. Yet it doesn\u2019t sound dated.<\/p>\n

The Bewitched Hands are all over the place musically:\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cOut of Myself\u201d sounds like a campfire version of The Police<\/strong>. Well, if the campfire had a Hammond organ. \u201cKings Crown\u201d has a bouncy, insistent rhythm that could have worked well back when MTV showed music videos. But again, though there\u2019s a vaguely early 80s vibe to may of the songs on Birds & Drums<\/em>, the record is decidedly non-retro.<\/p>\n

Though there\u2019s a strong pop sensibility throughout the disc, the group rocks as often as not. \u201c2 4 Get\u201d is a prime example of The Bewitched Hands\u2019 propensity toward rockiness. But \u201cStaying Around\u201d goes as far away from that approach as possible; its smoky and vulnerable vibe is a counterpoint to the harder-edged moments on the record. And that contrast is a big part of Birds & Drums\u2019<\/em> effectiveness as a whole. \u201cSahara Dream\u201d calls to mind a stripped-down (yet still melodramatic) Phil Spector<\/strong><\/a> arrangement.<\/p>\n

For listeners who like their pop clever and with some teeth, and who welcome stylistic variety, Birds & Drums<\/em> is a quality example of all of those attributes.<\/p>\n

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The idea of a songwriters\u2019 collective has always fascinated me. Band dynamics being what they are, most groups have only one songwriter; the alternative is prone to the \u201ctoo many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}