French experimental punk/hardcore band Birds In Row have released two new singles today. “‘Noah’ / ‘Cathedrals’ is a diptych,” the band explains. “‘Noah’, speaks about the seeking of truth and reality, in a collapsing world, and how answering philosophical questions by economical answers is the norm, the getaway. And on the other hand, ‘Cathedrals’, we talk about the need to reinvent ourselves but also to learn constantly; The need of deconstruction in order to rebuild something more sustainable and fair for all.”

“Noah” and “Cathedral” are available now alongside a filmed recording session of both singles. The footage was captured and edited by Yann-Maël Le Roy (Stop Eject Films) from their sessions recording Gris Klein at The Apiary Studio in Laval, France.

Birds In Row have been at the forefront of their genre for a decade and this fall the trio return with a third and powerful full-length album, Gris Klein – their most expansive and timely declaration yet. It’s an amorphous beast of an album: always unpredictable, but never out of character for this creative collective. 

Gris Klein is a portrait of a world enduring its most chaotic era in a generation. Yet throughout, the Birds in Row manifesto is the same as it’s always been: love each other. “We really want people to know that they’re not alone, and that they can count on each other.”

The album’s lyrics were sculpted over lockdown, when everything felt uncertain, and isolation and depression ran rampant. Birds in Row, fresh off a successful tour with Alcest, were suddenly unable to tour, and were no exception to the epidemic of mental health struggles. 

Birds In Row’s lauded 2012 debut You, Me & the Violence released on Deathwish Inc. rocketed them from Laval-based unknowns to the world’s stage. Their exceptional 2018 follow up We Already Lost the World was an unyielding inferno of brazen ideas. It screamed for mutual respect in a world of increasingly extreme political divides, and used the vehicles of punk, post-hardcore and post-metal to carry its cries. 

Their political outcries carry over to Gris Klein. The album eloquently summarizes the cruel and sometimes nonsensical nature of mental illness. “Trompe l’oeil” sings, ‘Most of the times I feel lonely are when my friends are around’ – “This is the exact moment where you should feel like you’re surrounded by people you love and that you’re not alone,” the band add. “It asks – ‘If I can’t feel loved in this specific moment, then when can I feel that?’” Elsewhere, the words of “Daltonians” confront the crisis of misinformation, police brutality, as well as broader issues of immigration and governance. It’s erratic by design, darting between topics in the same way that pandemic-era news outlets cycled from panic-inducing story to panic-inducing story. Not even a world-shaking pandemic could damage Birds in Row’s compassion and brutality. Now three albums in, they remain the model portrait of punk. 

Photo Courtesy: William Lacalmontie