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Shaven Primates – Birds aren’t real
| July 28, 2023 | TAD Records |
| Album | Digital | 24:42 | 5 tracks |
| Progressive Post Rock / Proto Punk | Oxford, England |
In the Wake of Child of Dirt
For half a decade, Tom, Mark, Jarod, Nick, and Neil have worked on the finalisation of their first album Child of Dirt. From day one and the first concepts until the fine tuning, it has become an impressive longplayer that brings Art and Prog Rock, Pop and Wave to a new level. The quintet from Oxford has started off their career as a band with a monumental longplayer already, and such huge buildings can cast long and dark shadows. Fortunately, this is not one of those stories. Instead, Shaven Primates have done everything right when they started working on their sophomore album Birds aren’t real.
The Madness that surrounds us
On their second album, Shaven Primates tell stories from a weird world where not only one mad king, but a whole horde of insane leaders wreak havoc all the time. This world is constantly shaken by war and misery while its inhabitants successfully destroy their own habitat step by step. And as if this were not enough, arsonists set new fires everywhere: propaganda, false information, agitation and baiting are their daily bread. It is a world that is inhabited by some of the smartest creatures which are very likely capable of saving their home planet. Nevertheless, those who hinder the innovative from saving the world are very loud and potent, too. This world that Shaven Primates tell us about on their album Birds aren’t real is too strange to be fiction: it is our beloved Planet Earth.
Action Art Rock
Compared to previous longplayer Child of Dirt, the sophomore album Birds aren’t real is a lot more direct, rough and heavy. When Shaven Primates told a detailed and filligreed tale on their first album, the second one can rather be understood as a musical wake-up call. Thus, the soundscapes have become straighter and more intense. Furthermore, a clear development towards Proto Punk can be spotted on the one hand while dark New Wave and Post Punk define another dimension of the new Shaven Primates sound. And it is a fantastic development which allows references to starfish64 and Hüsker Dü, Fischer-Z and Wishbone Ash simultaneously.
Of right and wrong Lives
Wrapped up in their artistic and progressive sounds, Shaven Primates take on the insanity that rules the sinking ship called Planet Earth. And thus they tell of the new rise of fascists around the globe and of the violence that is justified by plump populism and megalomania. In a completely dimension to this global view, Shaven Primates tell of people for whom the weight of the world has become too much, and of those who bite their way through even though they never seem to fit. And after all there are those who try to benefit from all the chaos, the conspiracy theorists and agitators who are mocked by the band in the title track.
Birds aren’t real combines the activism of Punk Rock with the musical genius of Art Rock, and it truly is a timeless piece of intelligent, progressive and innovative music for the future.
9/10 Mangoes
