Priestbird is a New York City band formerly known as Tarantula A.D. In Your Time, the band's debut album, is a concept-y musical mishmash loosely straddling the Hard Rock, Metal and Progressive rock genres.
Employing a laundry list of instruments in their songs - their website background photo includes a bandanna’d dude stone-cold jammin’ on what appears to be a cello(!) – the band has drawn on some of the more far-reaching musical elements from their named influences of Led Zeppelin and the Beatles. Great bands to ape, if you ask me. I kid, but For Those About to Rock, be forewarned: “Hand that Draws” asks you to wade your way through three and a half minutes of piano balladry before the Led Zep stompage begins. You can file the open-tuned finger-pickery of “Jackyl” under Led Zeppelin D-sides as well.
“Season of the Sun” has a Dark Side of the Moon flavor to it, the taste of which may vary based on your palette and your stomach’s sensitivity to pretentiousness. “Smoke & Pain” kicks in with a maximum dosage of “Electric Funeral” dirge riff-age. Not original territory to be sure, but there’s a certain appeal to the delivery that makes the song as unique as it can be, although the drums sound like they were played on cardboard boxes.
However, Priestbird does have more originality to offer than a similar band, Citay, you just have to be able to recognize it. A familiarity with the back catalogue of the many forefathers of Hard Rock/Metal helps. However, In Your Time does suffer from the all-too-familiar seriousness that plagues so many bands attempting to “break new ground” in that realm. And it is because of this self-seriousness that bands like Priestbird are for the casual listener so hard to take seriously.
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