Terror Bird - Human Culture (Night People, 2011)

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Night People is one of those labels that I've heard nothing but good about, but have only really checked out a handful of releases, so when I was asked to review the debut Terror Bird full-length, Human Culture, I was excited at the chance to delve into some of Night People's newest work. The album started off with some cheesy piano-pop riffs, which threw me way off. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't as upbeat as this.

The cheese eventually faded and what I was left with was some pretty simple piano and vocals and drum-based tracks that were sort of hard to separate from one another. At points, I was reminded of some of Ariel Pink's older works, but mostly what we're dealing with here is reverb-soaked synth and vocals.

I feel as though Terror Bird have a lot of potential to be really great, but need to broaden their sound and focus more on production than minimalism. It's certainly not a bad album, and it does have its standout tracks (the track "Dumb Sick" especially), but I'd recommend trying this one before you buy it, as I certainly wasn't impressed.



[Terror Bird Myspace]
[Buy Human Culture from Night People]