Active Bird Community lay their emotions bare on new album Amends

It’s a sweet spot Active Bird Community hit with last year’s Stick Around and 2015’s I’ve Been Going Swimming to some acclaim. Tracks such as “Pick Me Apart” are brimming with the arrogance, sincerity and sense of disillusionment that feature heavily before mortgages and kids typically become a reality.

The highs and lows Active Bird Community reach on Amends are both down to this youthful brashness and passion with which they approach their music. From vocalist/guitarist Tom D’Agustino’s misfiring opening of the otherwise flawless “Unwind With Me” to the the anxieties vocalist/guitarist #2 Andrew Wolfson so perfectly captures on “Holier” (“Is it holier than love / Is it all you ever want/Is it real, too real?”), the band collectively is the epitome of an unruly child. At times they can be frustrating and naive, yet prove again and again why they are totally worth the effort.

Elsewhere, the Manchester Orchestra-esque “Virginia” is a chugging monster of a tune, whereas the bittersweet “Silver Screen” sits comfortably within the cute indie-pop of Trust Fund or Joanna Gruesome. The only real weak link is one of the singles preceding the release of Amends, “Baby It’s You”. Passing the baton over to Wolfson, it plays like a poor imitation of the retro indie Trudy have recently been making their own. Without the pure emotive drive so prevalent elsewhere, it isn’t Active Bird Community, and it doesn’t work.

Nowhere is this seen any more poignantly than on the closer, “Lighthouse”. D’Agustino, as he comes to terms with some kind of separation (parents divorcing perhaps?), diverts from the song’s format to deliver a line that’ll tug at even the coldest of listeners: “Wanting to die all the time is not that crazy”.

The final lyrics on Amends, it perfectly rounds off the cycle of emotions that’s seems so familiar before reaching a certain age. Active Bird Community have got the swagger and the daring, but also the intense vulnerability that permeates your life when you’re young and trying to find out exactly where you fit in the world.