Stuff We Sell

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