Brown Bird | Fits of Reason

Supply & Demand (2013)

By ZETH LUNDY | March 18, 2013

3.5 Stars

Brown Bird, a boundary-pushing Americana duo from Rhode Island, make music that touches upon that can't-put-my-finger-on-it amalgamation of past and future sounds. Their reductive semi-electric folk — slightly overdriven guitar, violin, upright bass, foot percussion, wicked tight harmonies — is deceptively simple in its toe-tapping-ness, though in fact it is frequently reminiscent of '30s-era Ellington flirting with Cuban and Middle Eastern tropes in a proverbially dusty middle-America barn. This motley style proves winning on infectious songs like opener "Seven Hells" and the sorta sea shanty "Threads of Measure." On "Bow for Blade," a multi-tracked MorganEve Swain, goaded by jaunty fiddle, threatens to steal the show from her gruff-voiced counterpart. "Barren Lakes" and "Hitchens" both betray a desire to shake loose the shackles of genre and go full-on prog-metal — which is to say, Fits of Reason is here, there, and everywhere, firmly in this lifetime and yet agelessly out of it.

» ZETHLUNDY@GMAIL.COM

Topics: CD Reviews , BROWN BIRD, SUPPLY AND DEMAND, MorganEve Swain, More

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ARTICLES BY ZETH LUNDY

BROWN BIRD | FITS OF REASON | March 18, 2013
Brown Bird, a boundary-pushing Americana duo from Rhode Island, make music that touches upon that can't-put-my-finger-on-it amalgamation of past and future sounds.

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