REVIEW: British Birds—Silence Daedalus (2025)
Bobby Mambo and the gang return with a confident second album of jangly ear candy.
One of the best things about modern musical discourse is it’s no longer dominated by the weeklies, whose disproportionate power made or broke many an artist for decades. In ye olden days of NME, Melody Maker, Sounds and Record Mirror, the pressure was on to continually seek out/create The Next Big Thing, as well as identify/create a ‘Scene’. At different times, those scenes were self evident, but towards the latter days of the music papers, their insistence on contriving a scene, or desperately big up specific artists became insufferable.
Quite frequently, it was simply as a result of which record label was spending the most advertising money—that front page was worth something, but more often than not, whoever was awarded that was wholly undeserving of it. I always remember how the press (around 92/early 93) essentially decided Blur and The Charlatans were “baggy chancers”, and mocked them as being already washed up at regular intervals. Oh how they changed their tune when Britpop exploded. It fully illustrated how pathetic the whole thing was.
If British Birds had been around in the 90s, you can bet the inkies would have tied themselves in knots trying to pigeonhole them as part of this or that scene. Today, they exist as part of a fully independent DIY scene, entirely free of meddling A&R types, and able to put out their own records when they damned well choose. There’s a thriving bunch of them in the UK currently, all with a similar ethos, all just doing it their way, and all without any “help” from the parasitic corporate music industry.
Examples? Ben Holton’s Wayside and Woodland label, home to Epic45, The Balloonist, My Autumn Empire, The Toy Library etc. Or how about Ben Hall’s Bingo Records, the stable for The Mock Tudors, Mr Ben & The Bens, and—before their respective signings—The Bug Club, Melyn Melin and a stack of others. The UK independent scene is as strong as it has ever been—you just don’t necessarily hear too much about it—unless you tune into Riley & Coe at 10pm on BBC 6Music (yeah, thanks for the further marginalisation of grass roots live music, Beeb peeps).
Last year, entirely off their own back, British Birds released one of the best indie rock albums of 2024 in In Search Of Mr Rykyn, stacked full of bangers like Crazy Life, Bricks, Electricity and The House That Stupidity Built. I managed to catch them live as well, and it confirmed my suspicions: this is a band to watch closely. They even produce the best screen printed T-shirts known to mankind: there seems to be a delightfully cottage industry approach to the enterprise at every level, and it feels good to be able to directly support them.
Having already followed-up their debut LP with a 6-track EP (the sparkling Sucking Funny), the arrival of Silence Daedalus was highly anticipated in these parts. Could they keep up this momentum? The answer is a resounding yes, with another bunch of future set staples fired out of the pop cannon. Standouts are plentiful, but if you were a grubby A&R type hassling a radio DJ, you’d have to pick out Sheena’s Locket, alongside the two tracks the band has already put out as singles: This Bin and Merry Go-Round
The album does feel a bit ‘front-loaded’ as a result, but there are several standouts elsewhere as well. I’m There is definitely growing on me already, as is Please Close The Curtains with its Oh Wow-ooh refrain. And then they get all a bit New Wave on us, rather unexpectedly, on Reaction Time, with its carbon-dated-to-1978 keyboard noises and herky jerky B52s energy. I’m here for it. But sometimes their less immediate numbers creep up on you—always a good sign for any album. Closing track, Price I Pay has that weaving chicanery, giving it real last-song-of-the-set energy.
If I may be permitted to make a helpful observation, it’s that the band could have made the album even better by perhaps pooling all the recent material they had—including last year’s EP—and made the best album of those 18 songs. My Bar and Open It Close It, for example, are killer songs that warranted inclusion, and then it would have potentially been an all killer, no filler affair. I know DIY bands need to keep the coffers swelling with regular releases, but sometimes they risk leaving behind things that deserve to be part of the Main Dish, and that is arguably the case here—but I’m nit picking. In a live setting, though, the band now have a truly great set to choose from, once you smoosh together the best from their songs to date. Definitely catch them live when you can—I certainly will be. See you down the front, The Glad Cafe, October 1st…
