by Mariah Noonie (@mariahnoonie)
Is schizophrenically exploring and deconstructing your band’s sound with over a dozen musicians the best way to craft a breakup album? It’s uncertain whether or not Beverly Tender’s static members, Smiley Q and Tristan Brooks, intended to answer this question, but regardless of motive, they have. Their latest and apparently last release, Little Curly/boy is a Bird, is a collage of harsh glitchy noises, choral singsong, crying woodwinds, warm synths, unhinged vocals, and commanding programmed drum hits. Held together by seemingly-random motifs and bookended by the ramblings of a strange character known as “Gampy,” this album highlights both Beverly Tender’s songwriting chops and ear for aesthetic.
Little Curly/boy is a Bird’s disorienting introduction, “Foreword by Gampy,” and the contrasting simple, catchy second track, “In an old square where the ocean of the bad weather puts its behind on a sad bench with eyes of rain,” set the tone for much of the album. There is a clear departure from the more straightforward approach taken on their earlier efforts. Nowhere is this more obvious than “On the moon, a quiet asteroid pelting. Looking back, prognosis badsoes,” which is a reprise of “Theme from Beverly Tender,” a song from the band's 2017 album What Have You Done To My Water. With this new incarnation, they fully demonstrate a withdrawal from the standard “rock band” (guitar, bass, drums, and vocals) arrangement—and to outstanding effect.
Beverly Tender’s divergence from this format activates some of the group’s previously untapped energy. The solid interplay and communication between instruments, which brought depth and dynamic to their older material, has been replaced with jarring digital percussion and incongruous synth interjections. Falling in line with these idiosyncrasies, the vocal melodies become frantic and erratic but never fail to keep up with the instrumentation’s pace and irregularity.
Perhaps the best exploration of this new approach is the track “Leaky, omnipresent voice in the sewers. An Instruction. A Recipe?” In itself, it is a microcosm of the entire album. “Leaky…” kicks off with an intense guitar riff accompanied by forceful drums and nonsensical shouts (yelling a binary sequence) that quickly segues into a more lyrically-driven, staccato section. The band masterfully buildup and breakdown the song until deteriorating into a soft, synthesized soundscape, which of course leads back into the frenzy and excited desperation of the original opening riff. It shows off Beverly Tender’s versatile ability to be extremely powerful and vulnerable, often simultaneously.
Little Curly/boy is a Bird is a puzzling and beautiful death rattle—a corrupting data bank of memories and melodies. Its noisy energy builds up quickly throughout the first few tracks and refuses to fizzle out. Even the shorter and more experimental songs maintain this momentum. While the album, unfortunately, may be the last we hear from the project, they have undoubtedly left us with their most diverse and sophisticated creation yet. Much like with Gampy’s death, Beverly Tender has finally “journeyed deepest” in the band’s dissolution.