Angerbird in Aural Audibles: Out on the Town

A Parallel Planets piece by Tomi Uysingco

Parallel Planets presents Angerbird

in Aural Audibles: Out on the Town

Music Review by Tomi Uysingco

Mentioned: Halloween, Charles Manson, and Zooey Deschanel

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On a two-day meth bender with zero sleep, smoking js, watching Cadalack Ron rap battles (shout out Machina Muerte!), and being gloomy as shit: that has been my life pre-November. Hella sad, I know. Moving has become a chore and beer is now a water substitute; but I have seen worse, if that's any consolation to anyone. At the very least I'm not a Rob Zombie character – not quite yet anyway.

Fuck all that noise tho. I have Angerbird and it's Halloween, everyone's favorite holiday. If anything warrants a third day of not sleeping, Out on the Town is it. Moody and weird synth-driven dream pop from an old Casio channeling cheesy horror films and old Castlevania games: this is the perfect Halloween soundtrack music.

I don't know what's up with Angerbird's hometown in Vancouver, British Colombia except that there's bomb weed there. Which makes sense when one thinks about it, what with the wealth of Angerbird's output. Beyond this, nothing much has changed since Parallel Planet's interview with her last year. Searching for Angerbird in a world that is run by search engines still yields the iOS game Angry Birds, which frustrates me to no end. I still have no clue whatsoever on who this mysterious person is except that her name is Alex and that hopefully she still hasn't started burning couches except in songs. Can't say I'm 100% sure with that last one either.

In today's artistic landscape where everything is readily found and googable, Angerbird circumvents this by separating herself from an online persona and just lets the music speak for itself. And that's just it, isn't it? Why should we care about their personal lives and if they like their coffee black or with sugar or whatever the fuck else? I've been loud in social media one too many times about separating the music from the artist, my number one go to point being Charles Manson. He ordered people to kill other people, and that's super fucked up, but it won't stop me from jamming The Manson Family Jams. I'm not saying Angerbird has a cult that kills people, but I digress.

Out on the Town's first half is quirky but not in bad way like Zooey Deschanel characters. Setting the tone of the album is Witching, a synth dance lament that both goth kids and hipsters would jam to. Fanboys follows this up as well as the first song's route, sounding like an old Spazzkid track from his days as Cocolulu. The instrumental Spooky and Suits and Skins is dead aimed at Halloween house party shindigs and debauchery, with the former something to turn up to, then crashing on the couch beside a skeleton and a nurse making out while you eat all the leftover candy with the latter. The dance party finds a way to turn up again when The Friendly Bat starts playing. There's a vampire dancing alone in the dance floor but it isn't sad looking at all. It looks, and sounds, actually fun.

The album changes its tone into a more subtle mood starting with the post-punk dirge of Old Boy's Club and the fuzzed out Let Me Answer That Question with a Headbutt, Angerbird's melancholia slowly creeping in. Meanwhile, Skeleton Armada Middle School Drama (The Ballad of Lord and Lady Boogerpicker) is something pretty and sad at the same time, this would be the song you'd be putting in a mixtape for your crush. With the album's definite mood swing, even the once dance driven instrumentals are updated into something more darker with A Watched Pot Never Loves You Back with its the wobbling synth and Metasadness with being hyper self-aware. The album then closes with the acoustic murder ballad Untitled. There are voices whispering, and you could hear them coming in and out throughout the song. It is very effective to say the least.

And those voices permeate all throughout the record really. You don't hear them except in the last song, but they're there. Angerbird knows this. She once said that “There are voices in my head that tell me to do things, but instead of burning couches, I make songs.” This record encapsulates this statement perfectly. The voices have always been there, whispering and conspiring and telling us to do things. Luckily, Alex knows how to channel these urges within her. Like I said, I don't know what's up in Vancouver, but it looks like the water is tainted. Always remember to don't drink the Kool Aid. Happy Halloween from Parallel Planets and Angerbird.

*Read more from our music review series, Aural Audibles.

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