Kills Birds – ‘Crave’ EP review: a time capsule of adolescent angst
THE SKINNY: No matter how much we’d rather forget about it, it’s a canon event that everyone went through some sort of awkward teenage stage at one point or another. Maybe you went a little too heavy on the black eyeliner or preferred to romanticise your life into a rose-shrouded bubble. But regardless, alternative rock band Kills Birds manage to channel every inch of that nostalgic angst into their EP, Crave.
The Los Angeles four-piece are certainly emerging as a sizeable force to be reckoned with in the rock scene, having already previously released two albums which garnered the support of stalwarts in the likes of Dave Grohl and Kim Gordon. But on Crave, time is clearly of the essence – in a blazing burst of just five short tracks, Kills Birds firmly put a stamp on what it means to produce truly edgy rock music in this day and age, and they will only continue to rise further in the golden ranks for it.
Yet there’s also something charmingly rudimentary that laces its way through the EP: the sound of a band who are well on the road of a worldly journey but haven’t yet quite reached the final destination. If I’m being really frank, at certain points, do these songs sound slightly like the setlist of some marginally over-pretentious rock outfit you’d see down in your local pub? Just a bit. But therein lies the beating heart of Crave – there’s something universal everyone recognises within the walls of its angst, and we warm to it simply because we sympathise with its all too familiar pain.
In that sense, it’s the perfect record to reminisce on those insular adolescent years or to hand down to any teenagers in your life currently suffering those naively agonising woes. It screams and wails and unleashes the full throttle of anger right in your face, but it’s also intimate and visceral and, ultimately, deeply human.
Granted, Crave may not capture every element of real mature pain in searing depth, but in the space of just five tracks, it encapsulates all the aims Kills Birds set out to achieve and lays a clear ground map of where they can go next. For a band still in the process of building a trajectory, there’s not much else to do other than sit back and watch their journey continue from the powerful battalion that Crave establishes.
For fans of: Sitting looking out the train carriage window on a rainy day and thinking about everyone who has ever wronged you.
A concluding comment from my 14-year-old self if someone gave her this EP: “Ugh, what do you know about my pain? I hate the world!!!”
Crave track by track:
Release date: April 11th | Producer: Aron Kobayashi Ritch | Label: Lucky Number
‘Behind’: Lyrically exploring the depths of not knowing where to turn in your adolescence and always feeling as though you should be achieving something more, coupled with a screaming emo sonic output, the song is deliciously distorted yet perhaps too dark a way to open the EP compared to the rest of its tracks. [3/5]
‘Pyre’: Opening with a pacy indie bassline that a band like The Strokes would be proud of, this is a delectable cocktail blending the tastes of sleaziness, grunge heart, and emo anger. It sets up Kills Birds’ unique selling point perfectly as an outfit who embody the much-needed middle ground between all these genres. [4/5]
‘Madison’: Possibly the most insular of all the tunes on the EP, this song flits between quiet ruminations and blazing sentiments. In that respect, it’s a bit of a blueprint for every alternative rock band you’ve heard before, so it doesn’t offer up the most original contribution, but it’s nevertheless still highly fitting within the parameters of the sound the band are harnessing. [3/5]
‘Trace’: Although it risks coming across as a little too similar to ‘Pyre’ with its racing electric beat punctuating through the background, this song reflects the future for Kills Birds. Imagine this in an indie movie soundtrack or on a massive festival stage because the lights are definitely looking bright. [3.5/5]
‘Hollow’: This is exactly the sound of the EP bottled into one, a grungy softness giving the song an intimate closeness before it blasts into a supersonic electric stratosphere. If we’ve been building to a rocket launch, this is the take-off – and Kills Birds certainly aren’t looking back. [4/5]
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out New Music Newsletter
All the latest New Music from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.