I’ve been talking a lot about the Brooklyn-based rockers Old Monk recently. If you couldn’t tell from my review of the wonderfully eclectic show at Cake Shop (which, it turns out, Old Monk organized!), or from my rave review of their set at Union Hall, they’re one of my favorite live bands out there. But what are they like in recording? Could their energy possibly translate to a fixed medium? I sat down with their most recent album, Birds of Belize, to find out.

Birds of Belize showcases a different side of Old Monk. Although most (if not all) of the songs in their live show are taken from this album, its production makes it an entirely different experience. The slashing guitars and rhythmically intricate drum patterns that dominate their live show are somewhat tamed and pushed back in the mix in favor of lead singer Josh Carrafa’s unadorned vocals.

This arrangement allows for an increased perception of space, and highlights Carrafa’s phrasing, as well as his and collaborator/drummer Ian Burns’s songwriting. Live, those moments where the two seem to be slightly at odds – Carrafa’s steady, disarmingly innocuous voice riding atop a constantly fluctuating wave of distorted sound – are the most rewarding; but with the spotlight on Carrafa’s voice, they instead sound disconnected, sometimes “off.” In “Sacred Birds,” the first track on the album, Carrafa slashes through an upbeat, harmonically colorful set of chords while Burns adds his crazy-fast riffs, a mix with infectious, head-banging energy. But Carrafa’s phrasing stays tame and slow, and his vocal line sometimes plods along. It’s not until the breakdown at the very end of the song, when the vocals back out and the guitar and drums are allowed to do their thing unimpeded, that the potential energy in “Sacred Birds” comes out.

On Birds of Belize, the song forms that work best are those that closely mirror Carrafa’s vocals; the more melodic and straightforward, the better. On “Napoleon’s Wife,” Carrafa plays with a lighter touch than usual. His guitar is allowed to speak for itself, and the counterpoint between it and his voice is the driving force behind this song. It has a simple, loud/soft structure, and, at the end, a sprinkling of ethereal vocal harmonies. “Warm Moustache,” and “More Peat Moss, Please,” though a little looser in form with a few tempo shifts and spurts of instrumental noise, have similarly rich guitar parts tied closely to Carrafa’s vocal phrasing.

In general, the second half of the album is bumpier than the first. The genre shifts and sudden mood changes that won me over at Cake Shop and Union Hall are most noticeable on this side, but in the constraints of a recording, their effect is spotty. The instrumental “Trash Arond,” without Carrafa’s voice, sounds like a movie soundtrack without the accompanying visuals. Similarly, the instrumental breaks in “Noise,” don’t seem to add anything to the song. On the other hand, “Wimpy Olympians,” a short, noisy number that sounds like a punk cover of an old folk song, is one of the best tracks on Birds of Belize. Skullsplitter, the album’s finale, is part Classic Rock bluesiness and part Garage Rock jam, and the transitions between the two work perfectly.

Perhaps the best thing about this album is that it gives the listener time to process Carrafa’s fantastic lyrics.  Often biting, sometimes playful, they sit comfortably between Punk directness and Indie Rock irony. During the chorus of “More Peat Moss, Please,” a self-deprecating song about semi-success (“…and I have a name / to express so passionately”), Carrafa sings “Please be mean when I wash up,” over a slimy, faux- Jazz beat. Other lyric gems include the sarcastic ode to small talk, “Telephone Bones:” “There’s so many expressions to make / and I like to debate on the war…” “And we all agree Mary Shelley’s great;” and the dark, hard-hitting “Destination Ubiquity:” “What a place to find such peaceful sounds/ I should have known then what I had found/ A woman who let me pay her rent / Told me men and boys are different.”

Birds of Belize is available on Amazon and iTunes. You can also see Old Monk back at Cake Shop TONIGHT at 8pm with The Kobolds and Teen Girl Scientist Monthly, or next Sunday, March 6^th, again at Cake Shop. To whet your whistle, here’s “Butter and Toast,” from Birds of Belize. You can also find another track from the album in my review of Old Monk’s Union Hall show.

Butter and Toast by Old Monk