SOMETIMES
AVERAGE SCORE: 6.574
HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 3 (@Andy French, @enjoy, @nikkysan)
LOWEST SCORE: 2 x 1 (@GimmeWork)
Strange Little Birds loses its first track proper and coincidentally its the first track on the album too and as such it's the perfect deep dive into the murky, cinematic sound world of Garbage's sixth album. Brief and almost Pretty Hate Machine NIN-ish, Sometimes is angular and confrontational in instrumentation but with almost whispered in the ear confessional vocals, the song was created to what almost became a template for the album, starting with Shirley's lyrics which were often only a few takes and left dry. Butch described the songwriting process in one of the many interviews the band gave around the time of the album release:
"Through the process of writing, the songs all kind of evolved around Shirley’s lyrics. She wrote quite spontaneously and didn’t want to go back and second-guess herself. In fact, some of the vocal takes on the record are like just one or two takes. We started to fit the music more around her lyrics and her singing. That’s where we started to take out some of the rock – like live bass, drum and guitars, a lot of that we kinda just took out – and relied more on the atmospheric stuff and a lot of the processed textures that are in the album.
The first track, Sometimes, being what we typically do in Garbage – that’s pretty much how we recorded that song. But then we spent months, and we recorded layer after layer of things, on it – extra keyboards and riffs and I put in live drums… Then, when we mixed it, we took all of that out and left it pretty much how we recorded it – which is very, very minimal. And that set the tone for the record. We just decided we wanted the record to sound more spare and more confrontational and have more space. So, even though we went on this rollercoaster journey, we kinda ended up where we wanted to start."
@GimmeWork: Is this even a song or just an intro track?
@tylerc904: Works as an opener/intro, but as a song it leaves a lot to be desired.
@Sprockrooster: On an album with a lot of lengthy songs, this one really feels too short and having a way too abrupt ending. It does however serve a great lead in into Empty and gives it a somehow extended 'intro'-feel.
@sfmartin: What a lacklustre opener. Especially considering that their openers are all 10s (more or less) Interesting production but zzzz which is not what I want from a Garbage opener.
@digitalkaiser: This album is going to get such a lashing, but after seeing it live I feel like I get it a bit more so I’m going to try and do it justice. There are some pretty big sonic switches in this album and this is one of those moments. It’s a slow and ambient sort of track and works to set the stage for quite a dark album.
@magictreehouse: Strange Little Birds is a tough rate as, without any of the mega-hits of their earlier work, it’s actually the only album of theirs that works as a whole rather than in individual parts. This song is the perfect example. It sets the tone for the album, leads into Empty rather nicely but when you isolate it there’s not much to it.
@Oleander: I feel like this would be better as a closing track. Still enjoy it though.
@constantino: This is an atmospheric opener, but it never quite gets going like I want it to, rather, it just fizzles out abruptly.
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