CLEM SNIDE > Hungry Bird

LABEL: 429

[RATING: 4]

Clem Snide’s Eef Barzelay traffics in disquieting images. So it’s fitting that when you open the cover of their new album, Hungry Bird, you see two people doin’ it. “We have their bones to comb our hair…untie me” he moans on the hypnotic opening song, “Me No,” which wavers uneasily between major and minor. Later, there’s a skippable spoken word interlude, “Encounter at 3 AM,” in which a man wrestles with his attraction to a 14-year-old girl. Hungry Bird‘s lyrics contend with the hardships of life and the inevitability of death, sometimes with anxiety (“Hum”), and sometimes with calm (“Our Time Will Come”). The songs have the immediacy of live recordings, and the band continues to shine when it comes to instrumental interplay. Beyond the bitterness, Barzelay reveals his sensitive side on gorgeously probing tracks like “Beard of Bees,” “Pray,” and “With All My Heart.” For Clem Snide completists and neophytes both.