Birthday Boys – Tin Head

Due to past burn out, I’m usually pretty tough on anything that can be branded straight up “rock.”  So imagine my surprise when I sat down to Ontario’s Birthday Boys EP Tin Head and left not wanting to pull out my hair or fall fast asleep.  Under their loyalty to a legacy of power chords and toe tapping hooks the group evidences a labour of love.  Landing somewhere between classic rock and country swagger,Birthday Boys offer up a reassuring start for anyone who might have lost faith in radio tunes.

Never reluctant to pull aside the hard rock curtain, Tin Head strikes a key balance between plugging guitar licks and resourceful divergence.  Title track and opener “Tin Head” achieves an early balance between brazen hooks and soulful guitar spotlight. Graeme Kennedy’s vocals fall somewhere along the born-to-be-a-rock-star lines of Foo Fighter’s Dave Grohl, but with far more openness to letting the rest of the band step up.  For instance, Kennedy fans the flames of his opening high and settles on a whispered backdrop of poignant guitar solos.  When the song moves from a hush to a cry, you can just tell that the band knows they have the listener lapping up whatever they throw their way.

Furthermore, Tin Head demonstrates Birthday Boys as masters of momentum.  Rather than just offering up a series of fast or slow tracks, their shifting tempos parallel stylistic variance.  Back to back, “Daughter’s Man” and “Devil In My Heart” could stir a crowd into a rowdy stampede one moment, and pacify them into lighter-swaying followers the next.  The latter bears a coat of southern country with ­­­­co-vocalist Jeremy Boyd dawning his rusty spurs and ten-gallon hat for a soundtrack to a spooky fire-pit campout.  Meanwhile, “Haunt Me” rides out the low with a fitting but fractured dose of atmospheric indie-rock.

By album end the boys are back in the saddle and confidently twanging along to big belted vocals and distorted, attention-demanding guitar licks.  Tin Head is one of the few times I’ve wished for a full-length over an EP from a rock group.  Maybe it’s the country flavour, but Birthday Boys just know how to deliver the goods.  Here’s to hoping they keep on this current dusty path.