If youre looking for a band that embody everything hardcore punk should be, then youre looking for Birds in Row. Sonically, theyre fearless. Lyrically, theyre as poetic as they are recusant. And live, theyre a ruthless force, matching the power of their music with boundless, must-see energy.

After debut album You, Me & the Violence sparked listeners imaginations, 2018 follow-up We Already Lost the World was an unyielding inferno of brazen ideas. Metal Hammer UK called it intelligent, poignant art, writing that this downward spiral changes pace and weight at every turn. It screamed for mutual respect in a world of increasingly extreme political divides, and used the vehicles of punk, post-hardcore and post-metal to carry its cries.

Now comes Gris Klein. Birds in Rows third full-length album is their most genre-bending and timely declaration yet. Water Wings opens, its scraping guitar strums a ticking clock, counting down to the inevitable barrage of hardcore to follow. Noah revs up over its six gargantuan minutes. Its singing slowly spirals into apoplectic screeches. Trompe loeil is half folk, half punk, and Winter Yet has no qualms about busting out seismic metal guitars at its climax. Its an amorphous beast of an album: always unpredictable, but never out of character for this creative collective. Gris Kleins lyrics were sculpted by the Covid-19 pandemic, eloquently summarizing the cruel and sometimes nonsensical nature of mental illness. Trompe loeil, for example, sings, Most of the times I feel lonely are when my friends are around. This is the exact moment where you should feel like youre surrounded by people you love and youre not alone, the band add. It asks, If I cant feel loved in this specific moment, then when can I feel that?

Gris Klein is a portrait of a world enduring its most chaotic era in a generation. Yet throughout, the Birds in Row manifesto is the same as its always been: love each other. We really want people to know that theyre not alone, and that they can count on each other, they say. The way we treat each other is political. Its OK to trust each other. All the movies about catastrophes show people turning against each other, but thats not what would happen. When people are in the shit, they help each other. Thats what were trying to transmit with this record: hold each others hands.

Not even a world-shaking pandemic could damage Birds in Rows invention, compassion and brutality. Now three albums in, they remain the model portrait of punk.