There’s something uniquely haunting in knowing that the melody behind ‘The Sparrow’ was originally born in a dream. Yet, it also makes perfect sense, given everything we know about Swedish outfit Arn-Identified Flying Objects and Alien Friends. Writing about the project back in December, we celebrated one of its previous releases as “getting out of the Americana umbrella and looking inward at old Swedish folk music”, a direction that stays very much true for ‘The Sparrow’, and that it is, in fact, also the foundational essence of Alien Friends’ wider album ‘The King And The Sparrow’, out now.
The listening experience behind ‘The Sparrow’ is rather anthemic and melancholic, almost psychedelic at times. Built on gloomy minor harmonies, the piece reveals itself as a cinematic feature, a progressive rock-leaning cut that’s at the same time pure escapism and vividly real. Described as an “odd bird” compared to other episodes from the upcoming album, the new single still gives us a faithful example of what we can expect from Arn-Identified Flying Objects and Alien Friends in the near future.
Delving deeper into the complex lyrical ethos that propels the single, Alien Friends explains: “The narrator tells the story of a sparrow fighting for his life, but only to find out that the dying bird just might be the narrator himself. It’s something of an odd bird (speaking of birds) among the songs from ‘THE KING AND THE SPARROW’, but still in line with the general ‘feel’ of the song collection as a whole.”
Recommended! Discover ‘The Sparrow’ now: