Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The playlist would be long, would court controversy, and not everybody would get their say, let alone their favourite musical number played, but when it comes to the Songs For The Mass Extinction Event the one thing you can be sure of is that its diversity and mix of the unique and playful eccentricity will be admired by many. Even as we march headlong into the new geological epoch, the thoughts of how we look the process in the face and sing along to our favourite songs will be one of nagging superiority at the back of the mind.
It is the progression of fantasy that keeps us enthralled with life, the dynamic of sound and image that makes us seek beyond the expected and managed tidy lines, to further our imagination, to give it scope and meaning, and should the world end because of this it is only the start of something else, for as with the tarot cards, death does not mean darkness, but just the final number in this season’s end of the pier show.
Tiny Dinosaur’s debut album Songs For The Mass Extinction Event is an album that installs pleasure and thought in equal measure, you cannot after all have growth without the shadow of decay being observed, and in this case it is the remains of what has been left behind as the album’s players of Josey, Dusky Waters, Trilly Nelson, Connor McCready, Layla Sutton, and Dylan James stride with genuine purpose towards their own destiny, the providers of the songs, the minstrels to whom amusing provocation and deliberate open arms of acknowledgement to the weirdly awesome is a welcome ambush on the senses.
Across tracks such as You Might Be Wrong, Brother Robin, the excellent Who Put The Wu-Tang Next To Sgt. Pepper, Dammit, and the album opener Carnation, the melting pot of ambition is released, in full an album of encounter with a spirit, an inner essence of multiple personalities and feelings, and one that makes the end of what we know a drama of new beginnings.
To so anything other than love this album is not an option, for as each track grows so the curiosity is enhanced, and curiosity is strange and exciting phenomenon in which to be confronted with when you least expect its wonder.
Songs For The Mass Extinction Event is a rare case of joy painted by several people on the same illuminated canvas, and one that is cool, friendly on the senses, and lyrically, as well as musically, creative and enthusiastic; a real cause for celebration by all involved.
Tiny Dinosaur’s debut album, Songs For The Mass Extinction Event is out now.
Ian D. Hall