Rossland Radio Co-op your voice in the wilderness

SO MUCH FOR THE RAIN The Painted Birds (Painted Birds Music) ****
The debut for these Vancouver-based indie rockers- their name a tip of the chapeau to Jerzy Kozinski’s 1965 novel of the same name- is deep, dark, and catchy.

The Painted Birds are Dominique Fricot (lead vocals, guitar, keys), Josh McNorton (lead guitar, bass, keys, vocals), Shawn Berke (bass, keys. Guitar, vocals) and Shane Lynch (drums). Fricot’s lyrics are dark and sometimes unsettling. “I think, as artists, we have to bring to light what hits us way down deep, because that’s how we can get past it.”

He co-writes mostly with bassist Shawn Berke, a regimented and professional yet spontaneous groove by all accounts. Their sound? Hmmm… The Heartbreakers meets Blue Rodeo or Matt Mayes gets somewhere close to the truth of it. Jangly and urgent yet never pompous, these songs sound their best on a sunny day out on the highway, with a couple of well-placed ballads to break things up nicely.

According to their bio, The Painted Birds would “love to create music that is so intense that the listener can’t help but feel an impact”, surely a more noble pursuit than ‘making the kids wanna dance’. These guys have taken the fat chance, and armed with these twelve songs (and hopefully the right breaks) they could really go places.

KEY CUTS: “So Beautiful”, East of Eden”, “Intimate Mistake”, “Colleen”