Rum Bar Records, 16 October 2020
Gallows Birds are a band out of time with maybe my favorite summer record of the fall.
Gallows Birds (including Travis Woods, Richie Holes, and Glenn Wellman) are a throwback lovers dream. The music they make is timeless, a fantastic throwback to bubblegum and surf rock with early Beach Boys as a central touchstone. And on their first full-length, the aptly titled Quaranteenage Kicks, Gallows Birds are going to get a smile.
Throughout the record, Gallows Birds ooze nostalgia, both in the music and the lyrics. The music is loaded with hooks and energy that bring in various clean guitars with surfy melodies and bouncing drums. Songs like “Dance, Dance, Dance” and “South for The Summer” revel in campy surf wondrousness. “Summer” seems like what might happen if Beach Boys and the fictional Wonders got together for a night of recording hijinx and “Dance, Dance, Dance” has a great throwback feel and some absurdly fun falsetto backing vocals, sounding like a leftover from Beach Blanket Bingo or something. “GTO” and “Emily” keep the Beach Boys-vibing pop goodness going, too. “GTO” has some great handclaps and pulsing rhythm guitars while “Emily” goes a little more mid-tempo with some endearing vocal harmonies and a bridge to die for. There’s good stuff all over the place on Quaranteenage Kicks.
But my favorites on here are the opening 1-2 of “Back to the Beach” and first single “My Lambretta”. “Back to the Beach” has some great shifty guitars that blend in nice with the melodic bass and quick drums. But the harmonizing vocals, handclaps, and “bom bom bom” vocal accents really sell it. It ends up as a song out of time (actually, this could be positively said about a bunch of the stuff on Kicks), a sort of souped up “Little Deuce Coupe” or something. Meanwhile, “My Lambretta” has some of my favorite simple guitar lines of the year and hooks that get me singing along even when the music’s over. Simply, it still shines just as I described in my original review of the single. And speaking of that original single, it should be mentioned that the single’s flipside, the Graham Parker cover “Local Girls”, is on here, too. And I’m pretty convinced that I like it more than the already fantastic original.
Gallows Birds are a good time, nothing more and nothing less. They hold tight to exquisite songcraft and wonderful execution, giving off some of the best pure songs of the year. This one won’t be leaving me any time soon.
Favorite song: “My Lambretta”
Favorite moment: the harmonizing vocals on opener “Back To The Beach”
Favorite whatever else: I love the throwback record art that has graced the singles building up to this record, but the Quaranteenage Kicks cover art really ends up being one of my favorites this year
ryan is a reviewer and news editor for TGEFM. He’s very secretive, he might be an alien.
