deary - Birding: Album Review

Artwork for the deary album birding

4 stars hq

The central premise of deary’s new album is a weighty one for a genre not traditionally thought to be long on meaning.

It all seems a bit pointless to call it a shoegaze revival given that the twenty first century version has now lasted two decades longer than the original.

But maybe that’s because it has way fewer natural predators than the more delicate original strain, especially since time and perspective have broadened its definition to the point where entry has few hurdles to manage.

Originally coalescing in the weird post-lockdown world where everything was still somehow impersonal, for deary recording their first album took them to the heart of finally realising what they wanted to be, guitarist Ben Easton explaining the process simply as:

“Our last EP (2024’s Aurelia) was us trying to be deary and this album is us being deary.”

Easton first met singer Dottie Cockram in 2021, the pair bonding over a shared love of nineties’ touchstones My Bloody Valentine and slowdive, after which they were joined by drummer Harry Catchpole.

Birding’s central premise is a weighty one for a genre not traditionally thought to be long on meaning:

“The album is about human consequences” Easton says, “consequences on each other, our own minds, on mental health, on nature…humans have the biggest consequences on innocent, vulnerable, sentient beings, like birds.”

It’s not just wildlife that our tainted condition may destroy. Opener Smile deals with the epidemic of male violence against women; thundering bass and white noise dominate whilst Cockram swoops and sounds a warning about the relentless threat of abused soft and hard power (“One wears a badge/One wears a title/I wear a skirt/And fear with a smile”).

This marks the first time the trio admit that they’ve given in to writing with this kind specificity, but if the rest of Birding has a greater investment in atmosphere then it’s still more than capable of projecting emotional depth.

In places the abstract premise breaks through like shaft of light. On Blue Ribbon for example no sonic cathedral is left not turned up to 11, but the glacial, Wolf Alice-in-a-daze vibe has darkness flowing through the layers, Cockram anxiously pleading: “Hell or high water/I believed in you/Saviour, come save me.”

There’s a confidence here too, enough to have convinced the players that words aren’t even necessary as on the titular, ambient final track and Gysophilia’s sun dappled, pulsing ode to photosynthesis.

This self-assurance is made even more present by going back to the root; Seabird, with its bombastic, period snares and reverb drenched fuzz is a homage to the Cocteau Twins, one so convincing that it has the listener reaching for their phone to check whether somehow Elizabeth Fraser hasn’t become trapped inside.

Any line between imitation and flattery is however a mostly invisible one, as it should be.

There’s no reason not to embrace the pop part of dream pop either, another hurdle jumped in Alma, a track that had swirled around since the band’s earliest days but which Easton has deftly repointed towards the light.

Whilst the knowledge you as an artist can take that direction must be satisfying, the best moments here are ones that immerse listeners until they never want to float back up.

At almost seven minutes long, Alfie has a within itself understatement that still pushes and pulls, whilst Terra Fable is more deliberate, a chilly emotional capsule recalling The Cure at their most gloom laden best.

Don’t call it a shoegaze revival; Birding is something else, something that rarely fits in your genre boxes, a record that deary wanted to make without compromise, and did as soon as they possessed the tools to do so.

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