MUSIC

‘Love Songs For The Revolution’ (Album, Seize The Means Of Production) **

• Some folks try mighty hard to perfect sounding imperfect. They practise how to make sloppy strumming and black-lung vocals seem casually cool, how to make their solo acoustica more ‘busker,’ less ‘open mic’. And then there are the naturally slack. I can’t quite decide about Bird, who bellows deep, yawny Cash-reaching ranges and sometimes slurs his strums to a bluesy effect - in a good way. There’s even a song about walking the dark streets and “tasting the city fumes”, as if he finds subsistence as well as song material in the dirt and the sleaze. According to the press release, the Wells Journal heralds Bird as “an acoustic Kurt Cobain”, but rather than riled-up angst anthems ready to spur revolution, I hear tame folk pleasantries. That’s not to say that the melodies and vague lyrics aren’t fine, they just don’t inspire me to the extremes of love or revolution, as advertised. (Kristen Grayewski)

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