The Philadelphia duo Deathbird Earth have drawn descriptions of being a modernized Hawkwind, but they’re more the torrential Hawkwind of a dying planet. Though this central duo was always orbiting around each other in prior bands such as Hulk Smash, Dialer, Psychic Teens, and Ghloas, Deathbird Earth is their first expression of a hellish resource rapture in métallique. They take their first steps into it on their debut album, Objective Consciousness, on April 3, but we’re premiering it a day early. Check it out below.
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Objective Consciousness is a sci-fi soundscape for those who want more gravitas and can tolerate a little anxiety. “Take My Blood” and “Christchurch 281” open with the orbital sonic vertigo and the record’s doomed lyrical concerns. There is no way up, no way down, and the pressure of the bass and drums tells there is no reason to turn back. “Mission – Planet Y” then builds upon this with a glib but relentless embrace of pulp sci-fi frills and prog structure featuring Yanni Papadopoulous, Philadelphia local of Stinking Lizaveta fame. The long, restless sessions that produced Objective Consciousness have no lack of collaborators as guitar savant Nick Millevoi also features on the eponymous track “Mission: Nick Millevoi.”
“I’d rather die than never try,” are Objective Consciousness’s watchwords, emerging on “Dead Hands” with a nihilistic response. That doom and noise soundscape, phosphorescent with black-body radiation sci-fi sound cues, is at its best here. Yet, the uncaring cannibalism of “Resources 2.0” makes it the standout track as it shows the machine becoming necessary to navigate the greater interior and greater exterior. Nothing overstays its welcome as the “Time” sequence, which concludes the album, graphs out. These final three tracks, “Time I” to “Time III”, are a lyrical and conceptual statement. Objectuve Consciousness’s abyss-burnt heart, screaming out through a compression-shell, resolves here. Human concerns terminate against an alien philosophy in production.
The sense of Objective Consciousness, partially glimpsed through the looming cover illustration by Jess Feld, is a Gothic astronaut of twisted form lost in an exhausted urbanscape-overlaid-hellscape. There is a familiarity to the fantasy, but the screams tell this is not Major Tom. Meaningless in the end! But against what meaning? Deathbird Earth’s Objective Consciousness invites the listeners out there (out anywhere!) to explore their own uncanny ruin. Are you receiving this transmission?
–William Pauper
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Objective Consciousness is available April 3rd via SRA Records.
