Featuring members of Comets on Fire, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, and Espers: I guess you could call Heron Oblivion a supergroup. But that would defeat their evident purpose: to blow away some cobwebs and have a blast in the process.
It was the appearance of Meg Baird, late of Espers and owner of a couple of excellent solo albums, particularly last year's "Don't Weigh Down the Light", and maybe the finest singing drummer since Karen Carpenter (or Meg White?), that brought me along.
As you might expect, much of the album lays down some deeply heavy skronk, which is, of course, just fine by me. But even better, I think, are the moments when they dial it back a bit, creating more of an Espers-y vibe, as they do for much of "Beneath Fields".
Here it is in three (count 'em) iterations: first, the album version; then a well-recorded-and-filmed live rendition; and finally another live performance, somewhat less polite (and extremely rawly recorded), and worth sticking around for until five minutes in, at which point it goes Boom. In fact, I recommend you listen to all three: that is the best way for the song to crawl under your skin and do its business.
