Album: Birdeatsbaby, Feast of Hammers (Dead Round Eyes)

Life is a dark cabaret, old chum, and Birdeatsbaby are high-kicking their way through the ashes and dust with the best of 'em.

The second album from the Brighton "alternative-classical punks", led by singer-pianist Mishkin Fitzgerald, carries heavy reverberations of the Dresden Dolls. But it also has an operatic quality which elevates it above mere pastiche, and on tracks such as "Incitatus" they attain the nightmarish atmosphere of the Brothers Grimm.