V/A--Black Wing EP
4 Walls 2004
In today's overcrowded music scene, it seems like labels come and go faster than it's humanly possible to keep track of. Taking that into consideration, hitting the one year mark is an important milestone for all burgeoning tune purveyors. In celebration of reaching this benchmark, 4 Walls Records has issued the Black Wing EP. If its contents are any indication, these folks will be pumping out even more quality stuff, for years to come.
Featuring two songs a piece from three different bands (Gravitron, Birdwing, and Dirty Bird), this little disc is just brimming with revelations. The first of those is the shocking improvement of Gravitron, evident over the course of their cuts "The Black Wing Interceptors" and "The Young Lads of Olde." These offerings are better in every way than anything off their debut album--that goes for riff quality, sound quality, general strength of composition, and everything in between. Gravitron now only needs improvement in the area of vocals to become legitimate world crushers. The second big wake up call is the debut of Birdwing. Their two tracks, "69 Firebird" and "Let Them Know," sound like they would've been right at home on the legendary Rise 13 compilation. This stuff is groovy doom of the highest caliber, recalling Supernatural Birth Machine-era Cathedral, to a degree.
All this said, the best of the Bird Wing EP comes from Dirty Bird. Featuring Dirty Dave from the Glasspack, Dirty Bird blur genre lines on "Brains" and "Little Girl." Essentially, they've taken the fuzzed and sludgy aesthetic of "stoner" rock and married it with two bluesy cuts of pure rock n' roll. "Stoner" rockers will still love this stuff, but so too should those into garage rock. It makes for a very fresh feeling listen.
Not only has 4 Walls Records managed to stay in business for a year, they've pulled off something even more miraculous with the Bird Wing EP--they've come up with a collection of "stoner" rock that's actually a joy to consume. There hasn't been anything good like this for that genre in many a moon. Could this be the start of a revival? If so, let's hope the burnout nation has learned from the mistakes of its past. In the meantime, throw on the Black Wing EP and remember what it was to truly relish a fuzzed out groove without reservation.
Score this CD directly from 4 WALLS |
