Music Review: Anders Parker, There’s A Blue Bird In My Heart

By Melissa Bratcher

You know those TV shows that have artful music direction, like early Supernatural or Friday Night Lights or Parenthood (Jason Katims, I salute you!)? The ones that use quietly epic, devastating songs that push Matt Saracen’s story forward or underscore Sam and Dean’s struggle beautifully in a way that mere words can’t do, perhaps with an acoustic flourish? Anders Parker has written that record. There’s A Blue Bird In My Heart is packed with songs that have a quietly epic quality—the kind you feel deep down in your heart and guts.

The opener, “The Road,” is massive in scale—almost like three songs stitched together—running long, but boundless in creativity. It winds and turns just like its namesake, a bit desolate, a bit wild. The following track, “Animals,” has a classic bluesy AOR feel, but it’s so much more than that. The guitar follows Parker’s agile vocal line that erupts into a howl; a predatory stomp turns to a thrash.

Anders Parker’s vocal delivery is reminiscent of Joel Plaskett’s on “Don’t Let The Darkness In,” hopeful and warm with an edge, and an unusual guitar solo that sounds very far away. There are more upward, hopeful feelings on “Epic Life,” the epitome of a quietly epic song, large on the choruses with a rambling acoustic guitar on the verses, evoking “cool nights at the fairgrounds” on the first verse. It yearns and wants, the kind of song that makes tears spring to my eyes without even knowing why it happens. It could, of course, be the chorus: “Don’t want to disappear/don’t want to die/just want to have it all/in an epic life,” a sentiment I can always get behind.

“Silver Yonder” is delicate and sleepy, and begins with Parker’s easy voice and a single ukulele. A gentle breath of a song, a look to the west with hope: it’s completely captivating. What could be the flipside is “Jackbooted Thugs.” Military cadence drumming with a guitar solo that’s like “When The Saints Go Marching In” through a cracked mirror, it’s an odd departure from the bucolic, otherworldly gorgeous songs. It’s not unwelcome, but it’s tonally odd and quite long with repetition.

There’s A Blue Bird In My Heart is a stunning work. These songs burrowed down into my heart (maybe like a bluebird, but a sedated one, because that would probably hurt) and they wrote their own screenplays to accompany. I don’t know that there’s anything else you could want from a record, really.

There’s A Blue Bird In My Heart was released by Recorded and Freed on June 17.