BIO
Butcher Birds are three girls (Stacey, Jacinta and Joanna) and one boy (Donovan) from Brisbane, Australia. Their live show is akin to watching Victoria's Secret models playing the Breeders and Melvin's back catalogue, or mermaids singing over the Twin Towers collapsing. Sexy and loud as fuck. They've been together since late 2005 and in this time have played throughout the country which such musical luminaries as The Drones, Beasts of Bourbon, Something For Kate, Spectrum, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, New Porographers and a bunch more. They've also released 'Eat Their Young,' five tracks of scuzzed-out pop sludge brilliance, which earned them rave reviews and comparisons to Sonic Youth, Pixies and My Bloody Valentine. They're currently working on their debut full length album.
REVIEWS FOR OUR EP "Eat Their Young"
TIMEOFF, BRISBANE
The debut five-track EP from emerging local outfit Butcher Birds finds them consolidating their reputation as a powerful live act with this deft studio document of their early career. They’re often tagged as being ‘grunge revivalists’, and while that’s definitely applicable in parts this quartet has far more to offer than just a snapshot of the early 90s. The dirty, smouldering drive of opener ‘Mower’ gives way to the indie-riff weaving through ‘Tiger Paw’, which in turn secedes to the massive bombastic sludge of ‘Great Escape’. Then the sultry sleaze of ‘The Deal’ morphs into the leisurely, majestic build that defines the epic ‘Sweet Sweet Cones’, completing a diverse and powerful first-up release from a band with a lot to look forward to. (GP)
MESS AND NOISE, MELBOURNE
The 90s revival has begun in Brisbane. Violent Soho do the indolence and angst thing, lashing out and then lapsing, but Butcher Birds are harder to classify. Antecedents include L7 and The Breeders (so is 'The Deal' for Kelley or Kim?) and they blaze more than they bounce, but 'Eat Their Young' also shows a grasp of mood and emotional reckoning. 'Mower' falls at the point where sexual energy gives way to anger, while the shuddering hum of 'The Great Escape' turns relationship basics into a matter of life and death. The latter finds the quartet – vocalist and guitarist Stacey Coleman, bassist Joanna Nilson (an occasional Mess+Noise correspondent), guitarist Jacinta Walker and drummer Steven Tronc – adding menace-heavy harmonies to the mix, emphasising the feminine instinct that undercuts the grunge-friendly rock. Will '93 be the sound of 2007? Maybe, but when Butcher Birds machine-gun the forces of moderation on 'The Deal' with rapid-fire drums and fuzzed-out vocals, the mass of energy on offer makes the timeline irrelevant.
THANKS CRAIG MATHEISON!!
BEAT MAGAZINE, MELBOURNE
Butcher Birds
Eat Their Young
(Mere Noise)
Ornithology – the study of birds – has never been my strongest academic or conversational suit. Sure, I'm pretty certain those multi-coloured birds that rip off the fruit next door are parrots, or maybe lorikeets, and miner birds are those bloody awful things that pissed my parents off so much in the 1970s that my old man crafted a homemade sling-shot to preserve our suburban garden. But butcher birds are a completely foreign species – and given that the Butcher Birds (the band, not the taxonomy of bird) title their EP Eat Their Young I'm guessing the humble butcher bird isn't one of God's more endearing creatures.
So it's lucky that the Butcher Birds are an endearing band to the ear. The Butcher Birds hail from Queensland, but their musical shtick owes much more to the grungey sonic landscapes of Washington State, and the intensity of the Deal sisters' Bostonian legacy. Eat Their Young is two parts rollicking punk rock, and three parts grinding atmospheric punk rock. Mower is the stand-out track, packed full of some sparkling Sleater Kinney riffs washed over with the rich and dirty backdrop of Veruca Salt-ish noise.
The remainder of the album is played out at a lesser tempo, but with enough attitude to compel attention. The feminine harmonies of Tiger Paw complement perfectly the noise fest loitering in the background, while Great Escape presses into your temples like the fateful consequences of a night on cheap Tequila. The Deal could be a tribute to Kelly and Kim, but that's probably a serendipitous musical reference (though the references to 'habits' in the lyrics might be more than accidental); the bruising tone might easily reflect the permanent damage of an ill-considered substance dependent lifestyle. And finally there's the sweet and pretty Sweet Sweet Cones – hopefully a song about the pleasures of eating good ice-cream, but maybe not. EPs can be a valuable entree to a band's potential, or a gastronomic turn-off – in the case of the Butcher Birds, the weight of evidence is overwhelming on the former assessment. Good stuff.
PATRICK EMERY
thank you patrick, we wuv you.
TSUNAMI MAGAZINE
BUTCHER BIRDS
Eat Their Young
(Merenoise)
9/10
When a relatively unknown, underground Brisbane band release an EP this good, you can't help but be excited. Eat Their Young displays a crisp edge rarely found in today's bubble-gum wrapped indie pop. 'Great Escape' digs its claws into your flesh, pulling you down with its dark dredged sound, a feeling that is emulated on the entire EP. These cats herald a new wave of indie rock that's not afraid to get down and dirty, and this nonchalant attitude should soon propel them into the nations' collective consciousness (Nate Shea).
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