The Wind-up Birds: The Ghosts at the Show

The Wind-up Birds are reliably brilliant with their first album in 6 years. Andy Brown reviews The Ghosts at the Show for Louder Than War.

Let’s face it, there isn’t much that feels reliable. Buses, weather, my faith that humanity won’t ultimately destroy itself through an endless stream of war, greed and inexplicably stupid behaviour… It’s all very changeable. You know how it is. Yet since forming in the early two-thousands, The Wind-up Birds have created and maintained their position as one of the most reliably brilliant bands in the UK. At the recent album launch, singer Paul ‘Kroyd’ Ackroyd mentioned that disappointment is one of the themes on the new album… But you won’t find anything of the sort on The Ghosts at the Show.

“There’s human-sized fungus walking amongst us/ Forming a chorus/ Getting all boisterous,” warns Kroyd over an eerie hauntological drone. All We Hear Are Echoes recalls Forgets, the experimental project he created with Forming vocalist Ian Mitchell. Lyrically, the track begins to draw in some of the album’s anxieties, including the looming threat of the far-right. Elsewhere, mental health and male entitlement are explored. Having said this, the themes aren’t presented in an overtly obvious way, and the songs are rarely about one thing. Peel back the layers and you may even find a love story hidden between the folds.

One idea remains consistent, that words – whether they be oblique observations or apparent absurdities – are important. A few years ago, in the grip of writer’s block, Kroyd committed to the idea of writing a lyric a day, and that approach has clearly contributed towards the album’s tapestry of imagery and ideas. Honestly, it’s the kind of lyric sheet that makes most others seem pretty pedestrian. In fact, the words are so good they may very well ruin some of your favourite bands. Sorry in advance.

While you’re mentally unpicking the themes, the band are delivering some top-tier post-punk clatter. Just listen to that primal, Wire-esque riff on A Punch to the Stomach or the exhilarating thrash of The People with the Telly Heads. Fuelled by anger and amusement, the music feels urgent and gloriously cantankerous. “I’m imagining things/ Catastrophic happenings/ Apocalypse weather that might bring us together,” sings our angst-ridden guide from the heart of the storm. Kroyd and his merry band of Birds have created something that hits hard, much like that aforementioned punch.

Like the lyrics, the music contained within this efficient 34-minute offering is layered and impressively accomplished. Death Dancers is a mere two minutes long, but the track’s tight, post-punk funk finds the Birds really stretching their wings. In my humble opinion, that bass, synth and drum groove really does deserve a 10-minute extended cut. On the flip side, the sorrowful march of Left Fallow marries the band’s atmospheric instrumentation to a particularly raw and vulnerable lyric. By the time guitarist Mat Forrest comes in with those emotive backing vocals, I’m entranced. Bleak yet beautiful.

While there are plenty of influences you could pick out, there’s something here that could only come from The Wind-up Birds. Hooks and harmonies can’t disguise the undeniably idiosyncratic nature of songs like A Name and the ace Dangling Plot Threads. The latter with its strange, self-referential lyrics and the former with its emotional yet wonderfully lopsided chorus. “They’re shouting out a name/ Could be anyone’s/ A daughter or a son,” sings Kroyd before adding a crushing clarification, “Each syllable weighs a tonne.” Again, words are important around here.

War and wanton destruction have cast a particularly long shadow over the last few years and you can hear it seep into the album. That Gas Mask paints an anxiety-ridden image of imminent apocalypse while Children Who Never morphs into an ode to those lost in war and those who never got a chance to exist. These themes sit next to tracks about terminal distraction (When the Screen Lights Up Your Face) and the balaclava-wearing “moral men” (Guards). Put these seemingly disparate pieces together and you get a pretty potent picture. All we need now is one of the world’s worst men to become a trillionaire, oh wait…

So yes, the world may be on fire… but you can always rely on Yorkshire’s finest to deliver the goods. Headphones on and lyric sheet in hand, you’ll find yourself drawn back to The Ghosts at the Show again and again. For those after an intelligent post-punk/indie-rock album that’s a cut above the rest, you’ve just hit pay dirt. If you won’t listen to me, then just take the hint from this lyric on Dangling Plot Threads: “Buy our album today, for tomorrow you’ll be dead.” Seize the day and give it a spin.

You can find The Wind-up Birds on Instagram, Facebook and Bandcamp.

Find Forgets on Bandcamp.

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All words by Andy Brown. You can visit his author profile and read more of his reviews for Louder Than War HERE.