No, they're not technical music, but Birds of Tokyo are a sweet little pop rock band from the sleepy town of Perth, Western Australia, featuring the guy with the sexiest voice in the world: Ian Kenny. Their MySpace profile (www.myspace.com/birdsoftokyo) currently has their entire debut album available for streaming, so check it out and see what you think. LIYL good solid pop songs with the odd spot of heaviness thrown in here and there. Also, the two-part video for "Broken Bones" / "Silhouettic" (also on the MySpace) features boobies belonging to Fernanda Romero. Watch it. There's also some killing and other scary stuff.
I like the first few songs on their myspace. For some reason, I expected them to sound entirely different than they do. Will check out when I get home later.
Painfully unremarkable band. I caught them live and it was one of the most indifferent experiences of my life as a music-consumer. That being said, Ian Kenny is one of the greatest vocalists in the world at this point in time and easily the greatest Australian vocalist currently touring. He's just freaking amazing. Any success this band has amassed can be attributed to his involvement.
Grabbed a review copy of their latest album and my opinion has shifted somewhat. I still think the instrumentalists are ridiculously unimaginative, but this album has a slew of truly amazing songs. I'll post the review once it's published on Wednesday.
My opinion hasn't really change as much as you'd think. I still maintain that all success the band has amassed thusfar is on account of Kenny and that the instrumentalists are painfully unremarkable. And considering 99% of all bands are better in a live environment, I would have assumed catching them in a live setting would have given me a good overview of their sound, which it did, since I concluded that Ian Kenny was the foundation of this band's success and that the instrumentalists were of indifferent creativity.
Kenny doesn't write any of the music though... so without the musicians (well, mainly the guitarist) their songs wouldn't be anything like they are. However, I do grant you that they would be nowhere near as well known as they are now if it weren't for Kenny's work in Karnivool. The first time I saw BOT live (which was actually before I even knew Kenny was in the band), there were a dozen or so Karnivool shirts in the crowd, and it just got more popular among 'vool fans from there. But that doesn't change the fact that BOT are awesome, whether Kenny is in Karnivool or not. IMO.
I assume Kenny writes the vocal melodies and those are the only remarkable thing about the band- the instrumentation is laughably perfunctory and song structures blindingly banal. The success the band has amassed comes entirely from Kenny not by virtue of his involvement with Karnivool, but his genius for melody.
