Thunderbird Divine

Kudos to Thunderbird Divine on beating me to the obvious joke that their rehearsal room clip of the new song “Cerebral Tides” looks like it was shot on a security camera. The VHS filter only enhances that impression. Fair enough. You’ll always have my heart, Philadelphia.

Check your Way-Back Machine and you might recall Thunderbird Divine putting out the righteously-funked The Hand of Man EP (review here) just as humanity was beginning to burrow itself into the ground and hope it survived the asteroid slamming into the surface of the earth… or something like that. Either way, the EP r-u-l-e-d, and made a killer follow-up to 2019’s Magnasonic (review here), and it seems the group aren’t content to rest on those laurels, as their space-heavy cosmic sludge groove has expanded once again. What the hell does that mean? Means they got a keyboardist. Keep up.

And what exactly do we know about our new friend Jack? Well, it’s safe to assume he has a last name, though I don’t know what it is — I could ask, but that would be totally unlaid-back of me and the vibe in “Cerebral Tides” is directing me otherwise — and we know he makes Thunderbird Divine‘s rehearsal space one more person plus one keyboard’s worth of crowded. And from listening we know he rocks it. That’s not exactly nothing to go on.

But though more info will presumably be revealed in good time about their intentions/surnames, I’m glad to see Thunderbird Divine are working on new stuff. Even in this grainy form, you can hear “Cerebral Tides” has its groove on lockdown like there’s been an outbreak of nod, and the who knows whether it’ll stay instrumental or get some vocals later on. Whatever, whenever. These dudes have earned my trust to this point to the degree that, whatever’s coming next, I want to check it out. - The Obelisk