Bio
Despite there not being an official election for such a title, Chicago’s Big Black Bird are making a strong campaign as one of the city’s hardest-working, and overall best acts. Renaming themselves after a stint in the late 2000’s as The Auramatics, BBB is crafting both personal and universal songs with a rough-around-the-edges approach and the quartet’s emphasis on distortion, high energy vocals, and letting each member wear the songwriting hat are a welcome change from a genre seemingly focused on beard-growth and flannel cravings. By purposefully nodding to other influences outside of the standard torchbearers like The Replacements, including Big Star, Teenage Fanclub and Matthew Sweet, Big Black Bird are setting themselves apart early, as not to get lost in Chicago’s jumble of overgrown bar bands.
BBB’s lineup - Andrew Price, Brian Schnell and brothers Kevin and Brian Bart - buoy the songs on last year’s debut album The Lemon Tree with the expertise of road veterans, packing the entire disc to the gills with necessary punches and anthemic riffs. Opening with the blistering “Time Capsule,” this 10-track LP layers on guitar-strangling feedback (the barn-burning “The Manor”) and pop/rock gems that nearly beg to be played with the windows down on long drives (“Did It Again,” “Tomahawk Train,” “Dumpster”). Though it’s not out-of-line to say most of these songs put the pedal-to-the-metal, there’s enough variety from each songwriter on The Lemon Tree so that the performances still stand-out from each other: Almost tribal-esque drums open “Tulsa Echo;” the album-closing “War Hammer” rings of Neil Young & Crazy Horse; the twangy intro to “Operation In Hand” give the entire track a loose, enjoyable feel. It all adds up to a stellar album with a ramshackle, exuberant end result, not unlike the collaborative, just-for-fun aura of the Traveling Wilburys or Golden Smog.
