The Firebird Band
The City at Night
Bifocal Media/Lucid Records
Technological advancements have allowed anyone with a computer and a little programming knowledge to create music. It’s allowed artists to cut and paste beats and tracks, and it has helped give birth to a whole genre of monotonous music. The Firebird Band may be high in the pile of this genre, but they still reside there.
This album is not only background music, but it plays like a compilation instead of a consistent full-length. The first six songs are electronic/experimental dark wave. Tracks 7 and 8 could have been ripped off of Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. Track 9 begins with a Nine Inch Nails sound and goes downhill from there. Tracks 10 and 11 use more traditional instruments (acoustic guitar and piano) to create folk-y ballads – and they are the most intriguing songs on the album. But the final tracks bring it back to electronic house music.
It seems as though duo Christopher Broach and John Isberg can’t choose a style. Perhaps this is due to the fact that City at Night was over 3 years in the making, or the result of their “cut up and edit” method of piecing tracks together. No wonder there’s no consistency.
This album is said to be the first in a trilogy. Great, two more albums of repetitive drone to look forward to.
The Firebird Band: http://www.thefirebirdband.com
