Attention Bird Utopia – ‘Best Of Kings’ album review: a throwback indie folk classic
THE SKINNY: This is the best Wilco album ever made by a band not called Wilco. Ever listened to Sky Blue Sky or The Whole Love? Then you’ve pretty much already heard Best of Kings by Attention Bird Utopia, as well. And, if you enjoyed those records, then you’ll love this one, too. It sounds exactly like them. We’re not talking just a little bit. In fact, it sounds so close to the material from those albums—in the instrumentation and in the songwriting, in the chord-progressions and even in the sound of the singing voices—that you’d be forgiven for thinking you were listening to some lost songs from those records*.
From the new musical duo Attention Bird Utopia, made up of songwriter/producers Harrison Whitford (Phoebe Bridgers, Matt Berninger) and Eli Hirsch (Suki Waterhouse), Best of Kings is one of the best new albums of the year so far. There are inventive and ingenious lyrics galore, beautiful slide guitar parts, interesting vocal melodies and beautiful piano counter melodies as well as crazy chords all over the shop and a carefree, feelgood vibe all the way. So, it might sound like Wilco, but that ingenuity imbues it with an originality all of its own.
It’s hard to date music like this. Just like The Lemon Twigs before them, Attention Bird Utopia expertly tread the tightrope of 1970s feel and musicality and a great but thoroughly modern sensibility. The album is as full of incredible warmth as a second glass of whiskey is, and the production is fantastic, too. There is a crispness and a lightness to every note, but also a hazy depth and weight that binds and blurs and draws them all together.
It’s an album that gently yet intently grabs you on the first listen, and I don’t think this is an album that’ll let go all that easily, either. There’s a lot of heart and a lot of soul here, and a lot more to listen to than you can take in on the first, second and third listen. It’s an album that is going to get even better with age. Another way that it’s like a good whiskey.
(*Almost as if to prove the point, as I was writing this, my girlfriend walked into the room and asked if I was listening to a new Wilco album.)
For Fans Of: Sky Blue Sky, The Whole Love, Wilco (The Album), Cruel Country. Jesus, etc etc
A concluding comment from Jeff Tweedy: I think you guys have taken my 2020 book ‘How to Write One Song’ far too literally.
Best Of Kings track by track:
Release date: June 6th 2025 | Producer: Harrison Whitford & Eli Hirsch | Label: Here, Here Recordings
Infinity Inside a Shopping Cart: Have I already mentioned that this album sounds like it could have been made by Wilco? Yes? Sorry, but it’s just that these songs really sound like they could have been made by Wilco. In fact, this album opener couldn’t have sounded more like a tribute/pastiche/parody/imitation or whatever you want to call it if Whitford and Hirsch had typed the prompt “write a pseudo-nihilistic, semi-self-deprecating and enormously ironic swipe at modern life in the style of the worlds best Chicago-based alt-Country Dad-rock group” into their copyright busting generative AI of choice. [5/5]
Stage Name: This album finds its sound, its tone, its rhythm, its groove and its atmosphere in the first song, and it sticks to it from there, so there’s not much to separate the songs. If you like one, you’ll probably like the others, and they are all of a very high standard. The repetition on the line “I keep scratching, I keep scratching, I keep scratching backs” will have you scratching, have you scratching, have you scratching your head, wondering how that was the best way to deliver the lines, though. As jarring as the rushed, chopped delivery is, though, the rest of the track more than makes up for it, especially the fuzzy, buzzing guitar solo. [4/5]
One Step At a Time: Like the Lemon Twigs? Like 1970s Dylan knock-off acts? Like Steelers Wheel? Like Destroyer? Father John Misty? Dan Auerbach’s solo album Waiting on a Song? Well, if you like all that, then boy, do Attention Bird Utopia have the song for you! This is a country dance song. It’s a train rattling down the tracks and a pair of dice tumbling through the Wild West dust kicked up by the rails. This is what the Eagles could have sounded like if they weren’t trying so hard. [5/5]
Brother, Oh Brother: It goes like this: balance a warm acoustic guitar pattern against a gentle piano part. Set a hazy 70s mood with some nice lap steel guitar. Keep a steady beat and a steady bassline. Sing a couple of verses about the existential fear of dying one day, watching TV all the time and seeing Jesus here and there in a breathy voice high up in your register. Throw in a few diminished and augmented chords, and then step up to the bridge or else sweep into a heavily distorted, less-is-more slide guitar solo. Even better yet, do both. [4.5/5]
Best of Kings: Melodic but gentle acoustic guitar with a beautiful piano part weaving in and out of it? Check. 70s atmosphere? Absolutely. Steady beat and warm bassline? It’s right here. Existential dread in the breathily sung lyrics? You bet. Unexpected chord progression? It sure sounds like it. Short overdriven slide guitar solo? Duh! The best song on Best of Kings so far? Maybe! [5/5]
Cary: Although…this is another contender for the best song on the album so far. There’s not really been a dip in quality yet, so that is saying something. This might have the most heartfelt vocal so far, the most sumptuous melody and the most interesting guitar part, supplied here by a floating and lilting electric guitar that flits around all the weight in the words. This song would feel too short at twice the length. [5/5]
Beck’s Eyes: More Morning Phase than Stereopathetic Soulmanure or Mellow Gold, and all the better for it. This is the most stripped-back song on the album so far, and the most lightweight on first listen, too. Hey, I haven’t mentioned Jeff Tweedy and his band Wilco in a while! Remember when they did ‘Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard’? No? Well, this is like Attention Bird Utopia’s modern update on that. It’s not that memorable, either, but both songs are very charming. [3.5/5]
A Company of Hamsters: As this song opens, we’re still in slowed-down and sleepy, introspective mode. The whole thing feels like it could be blown down or blown away by the lightest breeze. Never mind a breeze, when the slide guitar cracks and rips into the song, it’s like a gale breathing life into the whole thing, and a raging storm picks up. Some of the most vital, shocking and energetic singing and playing follows, and then, just like the end of Abbey Road, it’s gone again as quickly as it started. [4/5]
I’ll Come Find You: And so, the album closes on pretty much the same note that it’s been hitting the whole way through. This is a lovely, 1970s-style singer-songwriter ballad. If you liked the first song, you’ll like the last one. It’s pretty hard not to. It’s a calming, soothing, inoffensive and unobtrusive album. It’s easy and it’s slow, it’s hazy and it’s mellow, and, for the most part, it is both very impressive and very beautiful. This song is no different. [5/5]
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