The debut release by Sleeping In The Aviary is a synthesis of glam rock synths and guitar arpeggios with garage rock psychedelics and spastic punk fringes. The trio’s album Oh, This Old Thing is a cross section of punk where Billy Idol’s former band of the ‘70s Generation X meets the modern trip-hop of Hot Hot Heat. The rhythms have a dance-punk syncopation that reminds me of The Kooks and The Strokes, but there is also a retro feel to the music that takes you back to Brit-punk’s apex with trimmings emblematic of Slade and The Sex Pistols and the UK’s glam rock sect with synths and guitar arpeggios barbed with sonic hooks liken to Sweet and Gary Glitter. The album is both raw and stylish, loaded with jagged edges and spastic twitching that have a modish rashness equivalent to The Thermals and Die Hunns. The music is fun and rash, and at the same time carves out a niche for Sleeping In The Aviary as punk revivalists.
Band members Elliott Kozel (lead singer. guitarist), Phil Mahlstadt (keyboardist), and Michael Sienkowski (drums) made an album that sounds like one big jam session as they hammer out one tune after another. The guitar shimmies and rhythmic slings on “Face Lifts Float” and “Pop Song” have a bawdy punk ordinance embodied with Buzzcocks and Black Flag’s hysterics. There is a glam rock iridescence on tracks like “Another Girl” and “Gloworm” as Kozel’s vocals lather up the tune with raw, excitable friction. The bluesy acoustic guitar ramblings on “Sign My Cast” move with a rhythmic musing typical of Langhorne Slim and Two Gallants while Kozel’s heart wrenching vocals purvey an ardor familiar with The Violent Femmes. Numbers like “Maureen” and “Drug Suitcase” have Bohemian rock sweeps and punk-whisked rhythms similarly to The French Kicks and River City Rebels. The garage rock psychedelics of “No Socks” and “Only Son” scrunch and ravel the squeezing guitar chords and fast acting drumming as they bang out experimental punk pandemonium.
The album turns to avant-pop esoterics with the midterm numbers “Lanugo” and “Love Song” as it easels a confection that is reflective of The Fiery Furnaces and The New Pornographers. The track “Getting Thin” is packed with dance punk persuasion and Nirvana-bound angst in Kozel’s vocals. Though Sleeping In The Aviary’s album has many familiar aspects to other bands spanning glam rock to punk revivalism and covers punk styles from the ’70s to modern times, it does not diminish the fun and excitement emanating from the music. It’s in the way that Sleeping In The Aviary makes their punk which gives their music its own identity. They have the potential of becoming the next big thing.
