Night Birds – Mutiny At Muscle Beach

The gnashing, sloppy hooks of New York and New Jersey four-piece Night Birds make no compromise in their shift from long time underground label Grave Mistake Records to punk-rock destination Fat Wreck Chords.  The band remains every bit as unhinged as in the past with their latest full length, Mutiny At Muscle Beach, featuring no shortage of runaway pop-punk festivities and pointed societal accusations.  In fact, if anything the band may have even upped their dose of razor tipped aggression.  

Mutiny At Muscle Beach frames this crazy, eclectic batch of tunes like moving blindly around a TV set, channel surfing with little destination beyond a sort of pick-your-poison selection of content and themes.  With a band like Night Birds though, each brief stop features plenty of purpose as they spin their spiteful accusations of our modern media-fed way of life.  

Opener “(I’m) Wired” frames the album with the consumerist ADHD mentality that the band has so targetedly tackled since their early years.  The rejection of the daily survival circuit continues in “Life Is Not Amusement For Me” and swells with passion early in the rapidfire words of “Blank Eyes.”  “They grow up way too fast, when you’re watching behind glass, a life reduced to pills and padded walls,” yelps Brian Gorsegner of breeding mindless drones amidst the rattling, unkempt sounds that distinctly define Night Birds.

The band’s grimy pop-punk tendencies make for just enough pockets of catchy, jangling melody to retain their pop tag.  The title track races to a snapping drum beat and chorus of harmonizing “woah-oahs” that defines it as an easy choice for a lead single.  Likewise, album closer “Left In The Middle” stands out in its further inclusion of sweeping backing vocals strung over the insightful chorus line “Now there’s no one left in the middle, there’s no white picket status quo.”  Throw in a late-song solo and snarky attitude, and the band’s Riverboat Gamblers and Dead To Me likenesses shine like a beacon.

Of course it wouldn’t be a Night Birds album without at least a brushing of surf thrown in the mix.  While the album definitely veers away from the volume of some of their earlier surf dominated years, songs like “In The Black In The Red” sneak in a few beachy rolling riffs between chorus and verse.  Otherwise, the “Misktatonic Stomp” fits the bill as the obligatory surf inspired instrumental.  This lone interlude serves as a long standing reminder of the band’s divergent beginnings.

Night Birds were an obvious next choice to join the ranks of the modern Fat Wreck Chords family.  As Mutiny At Muscle Beach showcases, the quartet still has everything to gain in their steady career ascent.  If you were into Night Birds on Grave Mistake, then Mutiny At Muscle Beach gives every bit of evidence that you’re going to love their Fat years.