Magic Bullet mb086 Sparrows Swarm and Sing O'Shenandoah

Eli

Cello

Jay

drums

Andrew

guitar and piano

robert

violin and guitar

scott

bass

12

songs

Recorded:

May 2006

Released:

Summer of 2006

Sparrows Swarm and Sing's imposingly titled debut CD comprises just four songs: four mighty songs that amount to more than 79 minutes of highly dramatic, marvelously experimental, incredibly crafted, and emotionally engulfing music. Yes, indeed, another great post-rock band is born. This Massachusetts sextet eschews the banal new world of short attention spans and opens with the 24-minute instrumental, "Across Canyons/Canons." This thrill-ride builds from lilting and spare acoustic (then slide) guitars to doleful strings, then to a thrashing cathartic clash of guitars and drums. Just as meticulously, "Father Death/Mother Nature" is woven from jangly guitar and a dark, Slavic-flavored, cello-etched stomp. Then a swaggering male choir strikes up with a catchy biblical refrain: "Gonna walk, gonna walk through the valley of life, oh death, oh death . . ." At which point, the song is just getting underway. The flighty and tightly wound "Warm Blood Within" follows, before the deal-clinching album closer, "O'Shenandoah," begins with a softly sung Southern hymn and peaks with delicious, trilling guitars. Brilliant post-rock action.

1. Across Canyons/Canons
2. Father Death/Mother Nature
3. Warm Blood Within
4. O'Shenandoah (i. White Mountain Hymnal, ii. Come On Comararderie, iii. For Rhoda)

Recorded at

Bluejay Studios

Produced by

Sparrows Swarm and Sing