The Mess Hall - For theBirds

Thu 12th Nov, 2009 in Music Reviews

For a duo that built a reputation for disproportionately loud shows, the Mess Hall are dab hands with negative space. Where Notes from a Ceiling stomped on blunt-edged riffs and tom-thumping propulsion, For the Birds reins in the violence, and the resulting white-knuckle tension might just make this their strongest album yet.

The scuzzy stomp of opener My Villain wastes no time locking into a rudimentary groove that idly chases its own tail. Vocalist Jed Kurzel seethes and bites, growling softly where once he might have shouted. Cec Condon keeps the rhythm austere, ratcheting up the tension. Much like Austin rockers Spoon, there’s an implicit darkness here, lingering on the fringes and barely kept at bay. There’s the strong sense that the song’s titular villain might be closer than you think; it might even be Kurzel himself, or part of him. A brutal fight that sounds oddly like a guitar solo hints at release, but refuses to deliver.

Bell and The Switch trade guitar for a vintage organ, distorted vamps similar in spirit to Dean Fertita’s Hammond-straining work on the Dead Weather’s Horehound, but again only hint at deeper meaning, leaving us with more questions than answers. Following Bare’s long, slow build, Marlene openly smoulders, its empty-room resonance equally as important as Condon’s thudding percussion or Kurzel’s hazy voice.

Paired with the worn-out lament that is Silhouettes, the pace of the already sludgy album slows further in its centre, threatening to come to a complete halt. This sets us up for the gritted-teeth snarl of New Ornithology, whose power is only enhanced by Kurzel’s stubborn refusal to cut loose.

For the Birds is not an album that gives up its secrets lightly. Its opaque verses drape the album in a nameless dread that its choruses cannot chase away. It denies us clarity because it denies its own nature, and it’s this tension that makes For the Birds compelling on its first spin and on its fortieth.

For The Birds is out now on Ivy League Records.