The first six tracks on Sleeping in the Aviary's crazy new album are big-shouldered, sweaty, psycho-delic rock songs lovingly gathered by Ricky Riemer at Madison's Science of Sound. These cuts show the Madison-born, Minneapolis-based band pushing their sound further out into the meadows of madness they're known for.
But wait. On the second half the quintet makes an appearance, in a delightful way, on American Bandstand. These tunes are gutsy, tongue-in-cheek throwbacks to the 1950s. In American comedy and music, the use of irony is starting to rust. Lead singer-songwriter Elliott Kozel, at once devious and lovable, pulls it off. "Infatuation" is a reverb-licious streak of teen angel crooning and harmonies. "Her First Martini" is a chilled glass of demented doo-wop. Front and back half, Aviary throws all these new songs down like slabs of shag carpeting across the party room.
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