• New Music Reviews
• |
• Archives
• |
• News
• |
• Submissions
• |
• About
• |
• 
• |
• 

January 2025

• Labyrinth: In The Vanishing Echoes Of Goodbye
• Bonfire: Higher Ground
• The Big Deal: Electrified
• Landfall: Wide Open Sky

December 2024

• After Lapse: Pathways
• Illusion Force: Halfana
• Powell-Payne: Voilá

November 2024

• Sunstorm: Restless Fight
• Storace: Crossfire
• Voodoo Circle: Hail To The King
• Lionville: Supernatural
• Starchaser: Into The Great Unkown
• Empires Of Eden: Guardians Of Time
• Lonerider: Down In The Dust
• Seventh Crystal: Entity
• Neal Morse & The Resonance: No Hill For A Climber
• Beardfish: Songs For Beating Hearts
• Impellitteri: War Machine
• Brothers Of Metal: Fimbulvinter

October 2024

• Casandra's Crossing: Garden Of Earthly Delights
• DGM: Endless
• Daytona: Garder la Flamme
• Fate: Reconnect 'N Ignite
• Frost*: Life In The Wires
• Aries Descendant: From The Ashes Of Deceit
• Fans Of The Dark: Video
• Radioactive: Reset
• House Of Lords: Full Tilt Overdrive
• Cleanbreak: We Are The Fire

September 2024

• Sinner's Blood: Dark Horizons
• Serious Black: Rise Of Akhenaton
• Eclipse: Megalomanium II
• SteelCity: Reverence
• Hydra: ReHydrated
• Heartwind: III
• Gabrielle De Val and the Dragonlords: Tiger
• Find Me: Nightbound
• The Nail: The Nail
• Timeless Fairytale: A Story To Tell
• Stryper: When We Were Kings
• Phil Mogg: Moggs Motel
• Pure Reason Revolution: Coming Up To Consciousness
• Jordan Rudess: Permission To Fly

[ More Music Reviews ]

Birds and Buildings: Multipurpose Trap

Progressive Rock/Fusion

4.0/5.0

Facebook
Emkog Records
by Craig Hartranft,  12.06.2013

Coming out of left field to tickle your ears and mess with your musical mind is the wacky, whimsical, and wonderful Birds and Buildings with their second album, Multipurpose. This Washington DC based band blends everything from rock to jazz, symphonic to avant garde, music to create clever and entertaining concoction of progressive rock fusion.

They do it with a bunch of instruments, too, including violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute, guitars from traditional electric to banjo and sitar and, of course, bass, keyboards and drums. Shifting tempos and odd time signatures rule the day, making most arrangements both quizzically head-scratching and undeniably ear candy sweet. And then there's vocals, if you want to call them that. Every song has a few lines of lyrics, which are basically muted and incoherent. There are words in the CD's booklet, but because you can't understand what they're singing, it doesn't help. The booklet itself is as quirky and inventive as the music, mostly a mass collection of discordant pictures which seem to have no association with each other or the music, with words doing the same. But it unfolds cool. And the music is pretty cool too. It's like a huge mash up of from Weather Report to Pat Metheny to King Crimson to Brand X to Sun Ra to everything in between, only more complex and perplexing. (Listen below.) If like this sort of thing or simply want to step outside of your current musical listening box (and have the extra money to burn), you should check out this album. Recommended. (You can read more about Multipurpose Trap and song details at the label's website.)

Listen, Then Buy: Birds and Buildings - Multipurpose Trap

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

Coming out of left field to tickle your ears and mess with your musical mind is the wacky, whimsical, and wonderful Birds and Buildings with their second album, Multipurpose.

Alphabetical Index

The Powell Payne project, created in 2022 is the collaboration of Mark "Penfold Powell (ex-drummer of Psycho Kiss) and Adam Payne (former vocalist of Airrace). With guitarist Adam Davies and keyboard player ... [ Read More ]