In Spirit Presents A Wild Punk Rock Combo On ‘Birds of the Air’ EP That Totally Works

In Spirit maintains a very intriguing “punk” sensibility. They seem, at the outset of listening to their 2018 release Birds of the Air, completely unhindered by musical expectations, which by itself is beautiful enough. The direction they go from that starting point is worth serious consideration.

For lack of an initially better description, they sound like they combine feels ranging from beach rock to folk music to the aforementioned punk spirit as part of their output – and it works! Their instrumentals flourish completely on their own, jumping around from highs to lows and speed to occasional slowness and leaving the listener with a thrill. Through it all, the transitions constitute more of a flow than a collection of stalagmites or something. The band strings their ideas together with diligent and effective certainty, and it makes for something rewarding for the listener that also pushes boundaries apart with an organic and hardly contrived shove.

It’s in all honesty difficult to conceive of something that sounds like Birds of the Air, and like other aspects of the work, that all by itself is remarkable. Pulling that off is no small feat. Life is complicated – we all know that – so art that is itself complicated has incredible staying power and force. Everything doesn’t need to be complicated, and sometimes those ambitions fall flat – but In Spirit pulls it off nearly if not entirely perfectly. Besides, going with the analogy about music matching up to life, our time here is never perfect anyway, so a sense of falling off the metaphorical edge works.

The fact that the band’s music itself can spark such a conversation upon digging in says something good about their work all by itself. Their 2018 EP is on a base level a lot of fun, and in addition to everything else, that’s important too. They’ve captured something special – and there’s a sense after the four tracks of Birds of the Air conclude that many more would be very well suited. It doesn’t get old.

5/5 Stars

Listen below, via Bandcamp