Got the debut full-length from Raleigh's Bowerbirds in the mail today; it's due on Burly Time July 10th. A line from none other than your humble host ("my favorite new band in forever") adorns the top of the press kit. Listening to the album tonight, I wish I had put the case even more strongly; only once every ten years or so does one hear a new band this good, this bursting with ideas, this audibly in love with music. I will be surprised if, after living the album a year or two, I don't place it mentally alongside such holy-fuck debuts as the Gun Club's Fire of Love or more pertinently Souled American's Fe. It is that good. That they recorded this themselves, sweetly booming bass drums and roomy nylon-strung acoustics and all, just pushes the totally-bananas factor out there a little further. The lyrics, the rhythms, the feel, the never-too-much-always-just-enough sweetness of the vocals. The totality of the mood, the wide-ranging shades of melancholy and joy. The points at which the three members sing in unison like some cult who really have discovered the secrets of the universe. It is beyond stunning. This band is the complete package.