Friday, February 23, 2018

Swallow the Bird - s/t LP (1987, Scorpio)

Since I can't find any background info on this rather miscellaneous quartet, this will be a short-ish write-up.  This appears to be Swallow the Bird's lone album, issued by Scorpio Records, the label that pressed all of their LPs on red, transparent vinyl.  Swallow lead mouthpiece and axe-slinger, Wayne Radly's vocal parlance loosely resembles that of World Party's Karl Wallinger, and to a lesser degree Robyn Hitchcock, but the similarities sorta stop there.  In fact, the vibe is considerably more humble here, and Swallow's quasi-narratives and bar-stool observations (Time to put money in the meter of life, per "Army of Time") are appreciated, if not outright relished in bite-sized increments.  A rather economical quartet, these gents understood how to properly mold slightly off-center keepers like "New Shoes" and "Your Neighbor Makes Me Sick" without over or under-doing anything.  If any of you have any pertinent deets on StB, by all means chime in. 

01. My Rockin' Horse Has Died
02. Alaskan Headquarters
03. Swallow the Bird
04. Army of Time
05. New Shoes
06. Dictionary Lover
07. Your Neighbor Makes Me Sick
08. New Suburbia
09. Migraine
10. Hourly or Salary
11. Lightning Won't Help
12. Eastern Death Mark

Hear

2 comments:

mineforlife said...

I love this. Wish there was more info out there on the band.

Tyler Sorensen said...

Ahh, I'd love to hear this!