Some Army – ‘One Stone and Too Many Birds’ (album stream) (premiere)

North Carolina’s Some Army fought to make their debut record, One Stone and Too Many Birds. After the success of a self-recorded EP, recording of a full-length record stalled. Deadlines passed by and band members started new projects. But Some Army persisted, with songwriter Russell Baggett left studios behind to finish the record is a daisy-chain of DIY settings. The resulting record has the kind of effortless sound and confidence that only comes organically out of a shit load of effort and questions along the way.

The album’s eight songs are tied together by carefully built layers, from the rippling textures of knockout opener “Fever” to the rumbling bass and crashing percussion of “Infinite Mirror” to the pastoral-folk-cum-shoegaze of “Disorder”. The album beds down in shadowy corners, but never gets painted into them. These songs are coated in a dreamy gauze, but they never float. These songs pulse and churn with a blood-and-bone depth and immediacy. And amidst these carefully built textures, Baggett’s words cut with a mix of cynicism and humor that always aims for a new stab at hope. “I thought to write my name in disappearing ink,” he sings on “Fever”, “but I don’t know where to get disappearing ink.” One Stone and Too Many Birds isn’t written in disappearing ink either. These songs don’t fade, but rather become more indelible with each listen, with each tangled mix of atmosphere and hooks, of mood and melody. Check out the album in this exclusive stream, and pick it up April 8th via Potluck Foundation.