I’m having mixed feelings about that name. On one hand it has a gnarly punk sound to it that suits the band. But bird skulls are small, brittle things that you could probably crush under your foot. Birdskulls music in contrast, is anything but fragile. The three piece manage to emit a sound, both live and on record, that is absolutely huge and has some serious weight too it. A rhino’s skull might be more appropriate, or at the very least a large dog’s.

Guitarist/vocalist Jack Pulman and bassist Rory Marshall originally hail from Exeter, and like many found the themselves drawn to the Southeast to study only to end up making Brighton and its thriving live scene their adopted home. Released on the excellent local punk label and vinyl enthusiasts Dogs Knights Productions, Birdskulls bleary-eyed grunge fits comfortably into the mid-nineties revival so much of Brighton’s underground music scene is currently in the grip of. First and foremost however they are unapologetically punk rock, all the other bits and pieces they’ve picked up orbit around this core.
 
‘Poltergeist’ is a cracking opener. Woozy, picked chords give way to a pummeling assault of bar chords, and drawn out, hoarse vowels. If you’re desperate for someone to compare them to, you should actually look to the bands of the 80’s such as Dinosaur Jr. or Husker Du that pre-empted grunge, before alternative rock began including more metal influences at the beginning of the 90’s.
 
The album cover does a pretty good job of summing up the albums overall attitude. A child with their nose pressed up against a window pulling a grimace, there’s a brattish defiance to the album, but there’s also an ambiguity over how much they really mean it. ‘Good Enough’ is a great piece of up-tempo pop punk, Pullman rebelliously shouting, “I don’t want to go to bed”. There’s something in his delivery that gives sense he knows he’s already defeated. No amount of resistance is going to affect the inevitable outcome so you might as well put up a fight for the hell of it. Like a child who insists on staying up when they can barely keep there eyes open. ‘Sever’ assures us that “Nothing’s wrong / and I’m alright” in the chorus. It might be the self-assurance of denial or it might be a dismissively sarcastic response.
 
Whilst the typical lyrical subjects get a look in, Pulman isn’t afraid of exploring more eccentric narratives either. Final track ‘Coma Hospital’ tells the story of someone trapped in a hospital bed, able to perceive the world but totally paralysed, unable to speak and eventually killed by a family member.
 
“Shut if off!” are the final words of the album and, much like the narrators heartbeat, the song flat lines at the end with a ringing, high-pitched feedback drone. Birdskulls have a knack for including sonic details like this to enhance the stories they’re trying to tell, making for a more immersive experience. The chorus drenched, softly strummed chords of ‘Thursday’ perfectly capture the longing and nostalgia for summer that its lyrics describe. ‘Silverface’ is a character study of a recognizable archetype: that guy at the party who doesn’t know his limits and the song helps you get inside his head in his inebriated state. He “picks himself up and follows / the party till it dies”, and similarly the dirge of the song’s chords and the sluggish, lethargic drums feel like they’re dragging their knuckles across the floor. Carrying on from sheer will even though it might topple over at any second. Like its titular character however, ‘Silverface’ probably overstays its welcome, and if there’s one problem the album has its sometimes a good idea gets spread out a bit too thin.
 
But anyone who’s seen Birdskulls will attest that primarily they’re a live band, these are songs to throw yourself around to and shout along to till your throat’s sore, but on Trickle they’ve succeed in capturing a bit of that spark on wax. They play a release party for the LP at Bleach on the 10th of October, so if you really want to get a feel for these songs, I’ll see you down there.
Louis Ormesher