EP REVIEW: Dancing In The Face Of Danger – Exploring Birdsong

Progressive rock trio EXPLORING BIRDSONG are perhaps one of few truly progressive bands going; in a guitar-led genre they’ve eschewed the main instrument and instead embraced the use of piano as a leading instrument in their songs. The result is still undoubtedly progressive; their debut EP, The Thing With Feathers, was lauded across the community as bringing something fresh and exciting to the genre, and on its follow-up Dancing In The Face Of Danger, they’re out to prove it wasn’t a one-off and expand their sonic palette even further. 

Something that stands out immediately are the new additions to their sound; fleshing out the trio on record is a live string section and synthesisers. That string section makes it much fuller, as the band lean into creating more atmospheric pieces with them, and the synthesisers expand in other directions still, away from the strings and in a somewhat poppier, dancier direction. Opener Pyre makes immediately clear that this is a band who’ve spent time pushing their sound, as those strings and synths are pushed to the fore. 

Vocalist and pianist Lynsey Ward is again a focal point, and for good reason. Her voice easily straddles genres, bridging prog and pop with ease. Her tones are expansive, controlled and soft when needed but just as capable of taking up as much room as she needs. She’s backed as ever by bassist/synth player Jonny Knight, whose synth intro to The Way Down lends it a decidedly TESSERACT-esque slant, as does the off-kilter drumming from Matt Harrison who provides a constantly shifting backbone to the songs as he switches through grooves and time signatures with ease. 

Lead single Ever The Optimist comes as the penultimate song, but it makes sense; while Dancing… isn’t a concept EP like its predecessor, at least not overall, there’s still a clear sense of it building to something. This, in particular, marks a departure for the band in some ways as it was written with the help of the legendary Sir Paul McCartney; while it’s unmistakably the work of EXPLORING BIRDSONG, the work they did with him in their session shines in the way Ever The Optimist embraces pop far more than before without losing its roots in rock. The chorus is a true earworm, Ward shifting from her lower register in the pre-chorus to a rousing, synth backed melody. 

The biggest take away is that Dancing… represents a band that have grown immensely in their sound, unafraid to lean heavier into pop than before but still unabashedly a progressive outfit. Their bold sound, from that embracing of piano as made for prog and Ward’s unique voice, puts them squarely in a field of one; nobody else is really making prog like this, with the emotional heart and poppy touch of EXPLORING BIRDSONG, and there’s an extremely bright future ahead of this young band. 

Rating: 8/10

Dancing In The Face Of Danger is set for release on March 24th via Long Branch Records.

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