Review Summary: Van Hawkins
There's a stigma associated with heavy metal in 2014 that's slightly unwelcome. This idea that, as soon as you put a distorted guitar riff or solo on top of something, you immediately trivialize the meaning of it is absurd. Surely those who shout
'Rockist!' every time they hear Eddie Van Halen's name uttered as one of the best guitarists ever will realize the irony of their own pretense? The sense that they themselves can never respect guitar music perceiving it all to be regressive, homophobic ***e?
Alas, it's comfortable to hear something so unashamedly guitar focused in Taylor Hawkins' solo vehicle The Birds of Satan. Approaching the format of '80s Hard Rock/Heavy Metal with a twisted informing of genres as diverse as punk and prog, opening track "The Ballad of the Birds of Satan" is a veritable rock opera featuring a cacophony of styles on display. Versatility is the name of the game as within 9 minutes the song moves from a riff loaded opener, through funk metal jive by way of Iommi-inspired doom to eventual hardcore punk catharsis. Calculated under it's Townsend-inspired lyrics, "...Birds" isn't classically progressive in the sense that it pushes barriers; its total weirdness and jarring movements are what make it so out there and entertaining.
The only problem that then exists is that the rest of the album can hardly live up to the ridiculous benchmark setup by the opener. '70s inspired AOR "Thanks for the Line" isn't a particularly worthy follow-up, resembling a frightfully bad Kansas parody. Elsewhere poignancy is hard to find, with "Raspberries" being the worst contender for out-and-out '80s inspired fare, resembling a lost Survivor cut in poor form (thankfully, "Too Far to See" ramps up the ridiculous factor and de facto makes their power ballad aping far more entertaining). The lunacy is occasionally met again on "The Pieces of the Puzzle" and ersatz cow-punk number "Nothing At All", but it's hardly a match for the titanic opening number.
Eclectic, ridiculous and wrote with more than an inch of inspiration and influence, The Birds of Satan is the rarest of beasts, engaging their influences and proudly wearing them on their sleeves with a smirk. It's arguable if the outfit can sustain success, although if this is a one-off it's certainly a worthwhile oddity from the Foo Fighters' stickman.
