Published January 13th, 2009 by hrabbach
Relient K – The Bird and the Bee Sides
Yeah, I know it’s six months old, but I can’t always afford the latest and greatest right away, so I only got this one recently and it’s such a great album, I thought I should write about it.
Actually, “The Bird and the Bee Sides” isn’t an album – it’s two EPs combined in one CD. The first part are 13 new songs, some of them rather short, in a rather interesting combination of musical styles. The second part are “B-Sides” – songs that have been released previously, but are rather hard to come by. All in all it’s over 70 minutes of music for the price of a single CD, which is more than you get on most recordings these days.
Relient K’s excellent, often rather tongue-in-cheek lyrics, dominate this CD as much as the previous ones. I’m costantly amazed at their ability to build music around complicated and often funny, yet quite deep lyrics. The style mix in the first part of the CD is certainly an acquired taste… slower acoustic songs are immediately followed by fast, loud Ska-like arrangements, so it’s definitely not a CD to listen when you’re trying to fall asleep.
As with most of their albums, I find it hard to name a favorite… but this time, with 26 songs to choose from, it’s even more challenging. “The Lining is Silver” and “There was no Thief” are among my personal highlights in the first part – the acoustic versions of “Who I am hates who I’ve been” and “Hope for Every Fallen Man” stand out for me in the second part. If you have other favorites, let me know. It’s a fun album, well worth the investment. At least it was for me…
