Inspired by the Beach Boys, this Margate band bring the west coast to east Kent with upbeat reveries tinged with darkness
Hometown: Margate.
The lineup: Johnny Danger, Alison Blackgrove, Tommy Akers and Jimmy Davies.
The background: Shall we end the year with something great? Oh, go on then. Two Wounded Birds are a four-piece from Margate who formed in 2008 but sound like a five-piece from Hawthorne, California who formed in 1961. Indeed, the album they'd most like to take into a nuclear bunker in the event of a third world war is Pet Sounds, and they sing songs with titles such as Keep Dreaming Baby and Summer Dream, although it quickly becomes apparent that even their most upbeat reveries are tinged with darkness.
They've just been touring with the Drums and really they're a post-Drums band, ie an indie band offering a contemporary version of high-school hop-pop and early rock'n'roll. And yet it's straighter in its delivery than the Drums ? in fact, some of these songs could be cover versions of the real thing, so authentic are the performances and production. Drums guitarist Jacob Graham was sufficiently impressed by Two Wounded Birds' demos that he's issuing their debut EP, Keep Dreaming Baby, on his Holiday Records imprint.
You can't fault his taste. The title track of that EP is fast but wistful, like a less punky Vaccines with lovely backing vocals that sound like the singer is harmonising with himself (does the Musicians' Union know about this? Do they still have a Musicians' Union?). "Oh, what can I do when I feel blue?" he asks. Good question at this time of year. Pertinent, even. My Lonesome starts like a Tornados instrumental with a Hawaiian guitar highlighting the poignancy of the inconsolable protagonist's plight. "Alone ..." he moans, stretching the word out to a dozen syllables. "All alone. With nobody at home." This is fabulous. "Cos I'm on my own-some ... tonight." Somehow, he makes it sound like a threat ? but then, his name is Johnny Danger. It's as though the Smiths' How Soon Is Now was haunted by the spirit of the Shadows, as opposed to the shadows of Spirit, the great late-60s jazz/psych LA band. That would just complicate things.
Summer Dream isn't the similarly titled aching Beach Boys ballad from 1963, but it does conflate Brian Wilson's two favourite subjects pre-Pet Sounds: surfing and cars. "Take a ride with me, we'll be together for eternity," sings Danger in an homage to, rather than a parody of, early rock lyrical paradigms. Night Patrol is moodier, murkier, with a more Lynchian ambience: think of it as something for Dennis Hopper to sniff oxygen to. Last but not least is I'll Come and Get You, a slow, quiet, hushed, eerie number infused with essence of chillwave. "Treachery's evil ? gets under my skin/ I'll come and get you for what you did." These are great pop-song lyrics by any measure. The atmosphere of menace is, if anything, heightened by the use of the chintzy fairground organ. "Cos I'll be there lurking, in the dark/ At the night time, just a few feet apart." It makes the Police's Every Breath You Take sound like a nursery rhyme; then again, a lot of nursery rhymes were quite sinister, weren't they, so scratch that. Anyway, what a song, what a band, and what an end to this column's year.
The truth: They bring the West Coast to East Kent.
Most likely to: Sniff O2.
Least likely to: Play the O2.
What to buy: Keep Dreaming Baby is available now on Holiday Records.
File next to: Vaccines, Drums, Chris Isaak, Shadows.
Links: myspace.com/twowoundedbirdsofficial.
January 4's new band: D/R/U/G/S.
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