Heirs – Fowl (2011)

Featuring one of the weirdest covers ever, Heirs delivers their sophomore released titled “Fowl”. In this album the band explores many different genres, manages to stitch them all together and create a truly disturbing and very complex listening experience.

We have been putting out writing this review for quite a while due to the complexity and intricacies of this very dense release. The band creates very thick layers of guitars that are nicely maneuvered to shape seven songs that are very complex and multi-layered, leaving the listener baffled at first glance.

This release opens with “Dust” a very well crafted nine minute song that slowly builds-up momentum and eases the listener into this very complex release. “Fowl” is even slower than the first song, having some very interesting moments of Post-Rock and Ambient elements that nicely keep the momentum building up. “Burrow” is our favorite piece due to the nice melody and interesting elements in this song, such as the ethereal voices in the background and Post-rock/Shoegaze guitars.

“Tyrant” shows some Psychedelic influences at the beginning and keeps up the flow of the album in a very unusual way. In “Men” and “Mother” we managed to get lost due to the minimalist approach to those songs, but they are still enjoyable as a part of the album. The closer “Drain” is another somewhat unusual song, but it nicely follows the path of the previous two songs.

In general, we have to say that the Aussies behind Heirs know exactly what they are doing and they have crafted a very interesting multi-layered release that will surely leave some people out in the cold but if you manage to stick with it, you will discover a very interesting album. The music is very creative and the execution is masterfully, very recommendable to all people into complex and ‘more than meets the eyes’ type of releases.

Release: May 27th, 2011

Country: Australia