Leaving None But Small Birds transfigures The Body and
BIG|BRAVE’s heft into a daring diversity of sounds unbridled and austere. The
loping opener “Blackest Crow” implements gusts of violin and harmony against
the bedrock of a droning riff and shruti box that subtly shifts timbre. “Hard
Times” threads stories of indentured and child factory laborers through
cascading trellises of rubato guitar as Wattie’s petitions are swallowed by the
swell. The Body and BIG|BRAVE’s maximalist rumble looms at the fringes of each
song as guitarist Chip King’s (The Body) staggering drones seep into their
fabric with resolute percussion from Buford and BIG|BRAVE drummer Tasy Hudson
punctuating with their steady current. Wattie and fellow BIG|BRAVE guitarist
Mathieu Ball twirl repeating phrases around one another into restrained
meditations that bend and shift incrementally. Hudson joins Wattie in
harmonized duets and hockets across the album, enhancing the loneliness of
“Once I Had A Sweetheart” and laying bare the raw brilliance of “Black is the
Colour.” “Polly Gosford” froths with persistently rising walls of violin,
guitar, piano and trudging toms that only capitulate after Wattie spins the
tragic song of femicide into ghostly revenge with “She broke him, she tore him
/ she ripped him in three / because he murdered / her baby and she.”
BIG|BRAVE’s roots as a minimalist folk band and The
Body’s love of old-time, country blues, and folk music enable the quintet to
strike a formidable balance between sorrowful lamentation and uplifting resolve
to weighty effect. Leaving None But Small Birds thatches together two
monumental innovative forces that render the emotionally profound with lucid,
devastating vitality.
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