SMOKING BIRD (Losing Touch) MCD-R
That is not the typical music this e-zine is about, but SMOKING BIRD are interesting enough to be featured in the Cosmic Lava.This very good produced demo starts off with "With Some Other Band", and at first it seems as if this Spain band belongs to the hundreds of MC5 influenced groups. With the next one "Fire Always Works", you can hear that these guys are also aware of Black Crowes, New York Dolls, Alice In Chains or the Rolling Stones, not only because of the K. Richards photo in the cover and you can't really compare them with The Hellacopters. I've got no informations about the history of SMOKING BIRD, but due to the song-writing talent they know how to create a very own emotional atmosphere. It's not exactly Heavyrock, due to the fact that they integrated other elements aside of the above mentioned influences.
The singer is talented and passionate and he is giving the songs a burning soul. "Brown Mountain" is a bitter-sweet track with a catchy melody. "Anything You Want" goes back to the late 80's Seattle-days and knows to appeal with tasty riffs and, again very good vocals. "The Last Bird" is a furious up-tempo Rock'n'Roll burner and this demo closes with "Mind Overdose", that ranges from The Doors to Stone Temple Pilots. I don't like every song on the "Losing Touch" demo, but SMOKING BIRD are sounding very ambitiuos and with this well-produced demo, it shouldn't be a big problem to get a bigger attention. I think, they would fit to the Spain-based label Munster f.e.
(KK)