IMMORTAL BIRD - Sin Querencia
November 7, 2024, a week ago
(20 Buck Spin)
I don't like the band name, just like how I don't like King Parrot's band name, but despite it sounding—to me, anyway—like a joke, the sounds Immortal Bird deal in here on their third album are very much serious.
Like, never been more serious, like black metal is very serious and so are this Chicago band, who lay down some blackened riffs and beats on tracks like ultra-grinder “Plastered Sainthood”, but I love how it's all fed through an inner-city bleakness and clenched-teeth urban grit. Bio mentions Pyrrhon, who rule, and although sonically there's not much bringing them together, spiritually, there is, and that's right down to the willingness to lean into Obscura (album, not band) textures and territories even though that's not the day job.
What the day job is, is a bit perplexing, but it's heavy, it's somewhere between death, hardcore, old-school technical metalcore (think Hydra Head/Relapse heydays), black, and noise, and it's delivered with precision and passion. And the riffs kill, chug, and destroy, which helps; just check out the incredible closing title track, Meshuggah gone horribly wrong/right, fed through the teeth machine, brainy metal done to perfection.
So I can live with the name, because Immortal Bird get it, get metal as art, metal as expression, and metal as something jagged, pointy, smart, and important.
