I have to hand it to Night Birds for eschewing the path of least resistance during their brief existence.
I have to hand it to Night Birds for eschewing the path of least resistance during their brief existence. The bands from whom they draw influence have left so indelible a mark on their music it seems nigh impossible for anybody to examine their work without bringing up the discussion of references to a very small number of older groups, and typically the same three or four every time. But despite this lack of critical imagination (of which I’m as guilty as any other writer), the band has plowed full-bore down their chosen path. Night Birds whittles away the extraneous and hones in on the solid core approach by fully rounding out both halves of their dualism: the bouncy, snotty 80s hardcore and surf rock inflected punk band and the bleak worldview
Though the band works in a vein that’s been well-mined over the past three and a half decades, their songwriting ability improves markedly with each successive release. Neither aggression nor energy is sacrificed, but there is a noticeable degree of cohesion present within Born To Die In Suburbia which had been hinted at by previous releases but rarely achieved quite to the extent present on their most recent.
The songs tend to barrel straight into each other, as if the conventional pause between them would deplete the album of its momentum. The way theirs songs can even out each other so seamlessly speaks volumes to the cohesiveness of their songwriting ability. Stylistic detours tend to take a back seat as well, with even some of the defining elements of their sound finding less emphasis placed upon them. For example, unlike on previous releases, surf elements pop up only for two brief instrumentals (one of which, is a cover of John Carpenter’s theme from Escape From New York and it is ridiculously awesome).
Lyrically, the band is as smart, as concise, and as bleak as they have ever been. Each song acts as an excoriation of some facet of the diseased viscera of contemporary American society, sparing neither the mundane (witness the critique of materialism’s ubiquity in “Ads In My Eyes”) nor the grandiose (as seen in the anti-religion screed of “New Cults.”) Despite the fact that much of the content sticks closely to standard punk fare, Night Birds resist easy sloganeering and cheap nihilism in favor of a sense of nuance verbosity that doesn’t dampen the force of the blow.
Though anyone familiar with previous Night Birds’ releases isn’t likely to be surprised by Born To Die In Suburbia, the album acts as yet another upward thrust in a trajectory that’s seen each successive release; subtlety yet steadily improving on its predecessor. By honing their songwriting ability in order to create something simultaneously jaunty and nihilistic, the band is able to demonstrate that, despite their reputation, they’re more than the sum of their influences and are one of the most distinct-sounding punk bands currently operative.
