Wildbirds & Peacedrums – The Snake

Man, what is wrong with bands these days? They’re shedding instruments like”¦well - like a snake sheds its skin. Maybe that’s why the awkwardly named Wildbirds and Peacedrums (WaP) have insisted on dropping everything save for the vocals and percussion. I mean, even the White Stripes had the dignity to preserve the guitar (though it’s perfectly possible to understand why a guitarist wouldn’t want a bass player in the band: they’re a lazy breed who can only manage a paltry four strings. Losers!)Anyway, this second release by Swedens "Jazz Act Of The Year 2007" sounds spacious and captivating, which is very much what I imagine that northern European region to be like. Starting with the haunting acapella of ‘Island‘ (which sounds like it was played at King Lear’s funeral and sung by Kate Bush), the album moves like a Shaman onto the tribal ‘There Is No Light‘ where singer Mariam Wallentin raises the undead spirit of Marlena Shaw with her epileptic vocal spasms.‘Chain of Steel’s’ marimba riff echoes that of The Four Tops’ ‘I Can’t Help Myself’, but the similarity ends there as the song builds to an impassioned, broken vocal mantra. After ‘So Soft, So Pink’ continues WaP’s affair with the spiritual, it’s great to hear ‘Places’ take a more traditional approach with Andreas Werliin’s steady, funky drumming driving his wife’s syncopated and, frankly, slightly nutty vocal catterwauling to climax. Naturally, an album filled with drums and vocals lends itself to the primitive, and credit must been given to its capture which is consistently warm and lacking the dangerously compressed spikes that plague albums today as engineers vie for a place in the volume wars. The ennervating ‘Great Lines’ and ‘Today / Tomorrow’ announce the arrival of ‘Liar Lion’ which is the most ‘complete’ song here, comprised as it is of the most instruments played on a single track. It’s difficult enough for traditional bands to maintain consistency across 10 tracks, never mind being limited to only a few instruments.The liberating and upifting ‘My heart’ is a wonderful paean to love: the likes of which we don’t hear often. The Snake is a deeply feminine album; and by that I mean exactly that. There are no twitching, distorted priapic guitars manically jerked around here; this is a soft, vulva of an album giving birth to a cathartic foetus in a forest at night - all captured on tape and narrated by David Attenborough’s warm, silent breaths. 80%Wildbirds & Peacedrums on MySpace