On their first full-length release, El Gato makes up in ambition for their lo-fi aesthetic. Recording in a classic garage ambience, with a drum sound that seems to have been phoned in from the 1960s, the Dallas-based quartet turns their limitations into strengths by leaving plenty of space around each song and then tying some of that material into long-form constructions. Simple 1/4 chord vamps shimmer in texture through long repetitive passages beneath expressionless yet intriguing vocals. At times, their ragged unison singing recalls the mid-period Kinks, only to blossom into Beach Boys evocations on tracks like "Midnight Beach Theme" and, with festive irony, "Christmas in My City." Their lyrics express a kind of buoyant fatalism, typified by an observation that "an avalanche is a sneeze away," sung over a brisk beat on "Reso Silverleaf," and in the segue from a meditation on catastrophic death in "Thought I Was Invincible" to a peculiar post-apocalyptic reflection, sung in disembodied intonation amidst ocean sounds, on "Dolphin With Legs." This attitude, conveyed by the eager enthusiasm of their performance, turns We Are Birds into an especially charming and disarming exercise.
© Robert L. Doerschuk /TiVo