Album Review: Birds Of Tokyo - March Fires

It's almost impossible to pin this album down. For a band used to trading in solid rock with big choruses and hooks that stretch for days, March Fires seems to burn quick and bright then quietly drift off into the air. But then you give it a second spin and a third and each time a different song sticks out just that little bit more. And songs – that at first may've seemed slight and insubstantial – begin to unfold in cinematic grandeur, revealing exactly what this band's purpose was.

It's been a pretty dizzying rise for Birds Of Tokyo. Each album has seen the band explore new territory. Undoubtedly March Fires is going to alienate some fans who came to the band through singer Ian Kenny's other band Karnivool or who were attracted to Birds' rumbling darkness. But it's really only a few steps beyond what the band were hinting at with their eponymous third release.

This Fire and Lanterns are a pretty good indication of what to expect. Lanterns in particular seems to be the centrepiece all the songs here orbit around. The band slowly build the intensity until the pay-off in the bridge when Kenny is given the space to really throw his voice around. And suddenly the chorus that repeats as the song closes seems to have taken on a whole new depth.

Over the course of their last two albums Birds Of Tokyo seemed poised to step into the space left by Powderfinger's retirement – a rock band that were ambitious and adult. March Fires is both those things but it might not be until Birds can marry that to their previous rock foundations that they really hit on a winning sound.