Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Sam Sodomsky releases ‘Melody Trail’, the latest album under his The Bird Calls moniker. Packed with astute observations, dark humor and a slab of Americana, it’s a record based around the concept of idly waiting around for some kind of revelation.
There’s a touch of Wilco in the country-tinged opener ‘God Bless These Days’, a song that introduces the troubadour storytelling that is a feature throughout: ‘This is how it feels beneath the surface of the moon as the rain comes down, as the depth gets deeper’. This is followed by ‘Makeover Scene’, a song that fits nicely into the current crop of anti-folksters (Cameron Winter, MJ Lenderman) with nature and weather a recurring theme: ‘Anywhere there’s a chance of rain, look and you’ll find me’.
‘Ordinary Silence’ has talk of ‘muscle memory’ and ‘phantom pain’ being delivered against an enticing indie-rock soundtrack while ‘Butterfly Strokes Home’ takes you back to Laurel Canyon with its breezy melodies. Album standout ‘Critic Meets Artist’ is all about the uneasy bond between media and creatives (‘an inauspicious kinship from the start’) with crashing drums and jangle-pop sensibilities backing up the view that ‘Critic meets artist and the fandom falls apart’.
The title track is a swaying, swooning song with a touch of Bright Eyes-esque self-evaluation – ‘I’m still trying to get my life back, moving on the right track’ – while ‘I Don’t Wanna Be a Cowboy Anymore’ has rasping vocals and country rock hooks backing up Sam’s words: ‘I’ve been sleeping on the day job, taking daydreams by commission’.
The record closes with ‘Hard Act’, a song that finds Sam trying to take stock of the state of a relationship: ‘I’d feel better if we take things slow’; ‘All this progress and nothing new’. However, this is offset by the following observation that ‘You’ll be a hard act to follow when the time is through’.
It’s these kind of relatable contradictions that make The Bird Calls sing. ‘Melody Trail’ is a journey you’ll want to explore.
