Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

It seems as if every decade or so a band comes along with a perfect combination of looseness and tightness, that Is grounded but threatens to fly off loose of its moorings and take you with it. That was the Rolling Stones in the 1960s, Aerosmith in the 1970s, the Georgia Satellites in the 1980s, the Black Crowes in the 1990s…so it’s the 2000s, and here come The Wildbirds. They’ve got the look, the attitude, the aggression, it’s all right there. They’re from Fox Valley, Wisconsin, and I’m not sure where that is, but they need to bottle whatever is in the air there and start exporting it. GOLDEN DAZE kicks ass.

The Wildbirds kicks up a bunch of noise for a quartet, but it’s a directed controlled noise, where no two tracks sound the same but not like anyone else. Some of it might put you in the mind of any of the bands I mentioned before; “All Get Away” reminds me of a jam between The Yardbirds and The Stooges. Let me put it this way: if your downstairs neighbors put this on at 2 a.m., you would go downstairs, tell them to turn it down, but ask them what it was, too. “Where Has Goodness Gone” is a bit more experimental than the rest of the disc, a ballad with electric guitar, vocal, and recorder, which makes the intensity of “Someday We Can Fly Away” and “Slow Down,” which follow it, all the more intense. While GOLDEN DAZE’s closers, “Please Don’t Go” and “Suzanna” are quieter tunes, they are memorable, particularly “Suzanna,” which makes you miss the subject of the song even though you don’t know her.

Rock ‘n’ roll needs a wake-up call, and The Wildbirds may be just the guys to deliver it. A kickass, impressive debut.