The Lord Dog Bird is the name given to this solo project of Colin McCann, whose regular gig is guitarist with Wilderness. His glittering shards of guitar noise brighten that band’s sound, but here, the aesthetic is strictly lo-fi and noisy throughout. Along with the fuzzy overloaded guitars, the other ingredients in the murk are fuzzy overloaded keyboards and McCann’s high-pitched keening vocals. He’s aiming for a warm and intimate sound, but the tone of the instruments and the lack of melody and lyrical insight serve more to push you away than draw you in. No doubt the songs have great meaning for McCann, and he certainly plays and sings with passion, but the fuzz and noise can counteract the feeling. Songs like “Song for Woodthrush” and “March to the Mountain” scale back the noise and stay relatively calm and tangible, but those moments are fleeting and the album just seems to slide past in a stream of hiss and clatter. Comparing the Lord Dog Bird to other lo-fi solo acts like Bon Iver and Iron & Wine, you can see that these songs don’t resonate quite as much, but you can appreciate the emotion put into the album and feel the soul being poured out. – Tim Sendra