Holier than most, so say Amends

Active Bird Community delivers an excellent project with Amends, an eleven-track album that leaves listeners satisfied at the end of each song. For those unfamiliar with their work, doses of Foo Fighters, Blink-182 and Saint Motel all appear at various times and occasionally all at once. A healthy combination of strong lyric writing and enticing melodic composition proves these guys to be bonafide talents.

Starting with the least memorable, “Virginia” snuggles up close to all of the other songs, but doesn’t make a name for itself too much; it’s an obedient soldier whose presence is appreciated. Several listens of the project make clear that these tracks do their best when all together. None of them are weak on their own per se, but the similarity of theme, style and energy ties them together particularly well; few if any of the tunes are “big picture” story-telling by themselves, instead they are snippets of the overall story, all necessary for distinct reasons.

Some specific story moments that jump out: “Holier,” a tune with an exciting chord progression (peep that second chord) and a guitar solo at the helm, later plays like someone going through a mental breakdown, and ends with the unnamed character heavily breathing as he/she gets calmed by friends. “Baby It’s You” has the same heartstruck swagger that Patrick Verona (played by the late Heath Ledger) has in the movie 10 Things I Hate About You when he tries to serenade Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You,” only this time, Active Bird Community is more distressed. One of three of the songs that is under three minutes, and yes, we wish it was longer.

The closer, “Lighthouse,” feels like it’s sung by a jerk at a party with a guitar, a lad who lives to roast others, yet it has moments of softness and appreciation. In a different feeling of contradiction than “Baby It’s You,” the character and the story find themselves at an emotional crossroads here. Fun, fun, fun.

A large handful of these songs have a summertime feel (that’s likely when they were written), and none encapsulate that sunshiney freedom better than “Sweaty Lake.” Chances are, it’s already been used in some youthful summertime movie like How to Eat Fried Worms or Because of Winn-Dixie. It feels like a romantic chase scene, stopped on occasion for pensive moments to try and digest what relationship dynamic is really occurring. After probably the busiest song on the album, it closes out with an instrumental ending, an admirable choice on their part.

“Sweaty Lake” is also among the lyrically strongest of Amends, the title track included. In the same song, you have “We both have dogs on our shirts” and “The ten minutes it takes to the train is the same as a soldier marching home.” Innocent pick-up line material next to incomparable satisfaction. “Amends” is an excellent introductory song, with an odd breed of defiance to it, and it’s colored by lines such as “The room smells like ash / From a night of blowing smoke at her goals.” The pauses taken between each phrase makes it initially unclear a) why the room smells like ash, b) why exactly they’re blowing smoke and c) what are her goals and why aren’t they being taken seriously? Admittedly the song is melodically pleasing to the point where lyrical gems like that aren’t noticed on the first listen. Oh, not such a bad problem to have.

The tag team of “Blame” and “Downstairs” comes at a great point in the album. The former is the first moment of musical calm since the very opening, and the message is so sweet. Someone witnessing their friend in bad mental health and then wishing that the friend could blame all his/her troubles on something external, but alas. “Downstairs” follows, and it begins with a similar tone to “Blame,” but picks up its energy when the drums add in, which is also when the words become more mumbled (perhaps by design). Every listen will see the discovery of something new to adore in this album, so please, give Amends several spins and enjoy their story.