Birdengine – The Crooked Mile

Birdengine is the creative output of Lawry Joseph Tilbury. Following a number of releases on Benbecula Records, The Crooked Mile is his first full length album and finds the multi-instrumentalist balancing a larger sound against his eerie reflections. Songs like I, Dancing Bear offset the often creepy vocals against clean Spanish guitar melodies sounding like a demented late evening performance in one of Barcelona's dark alleyways.

The Crooked Mile's strengths lie in its ability to move smoothly between the full band sound and Tilbury's own more intimate musings. The Experiments of Dr Sarconi shows Birdengine's dynamic ability at it's most pervasive. However, at times the self-awareness of the more sinister sounding vocal deliveries detract from the storytelling strengths of Tilbury's songwriting. It is this that at times removes the listener from the well-crafted instrumentation and can make it difficult to engage fully with the record, which really is a shame. [David McGinty]