Alisa Stepura’s debut album, Birds Are Dinosaurs Too, recently arrived with a gutsy attitude to alt-rock revival. Amongst the swagger and sincerity, a no-nonsense fuzz of early 00s guitar music comes a fresh polish with powerful performances and some dynamic arrangement choices. The single ‘Aftertaste’, garnering momentum in its own right, captures the essence of the project and opens it with intention: punchy, hook-laden and self-assured.
There’s a further tactile quality to the record, the reel-to-reel analogue recording further embedding the nostalgic tone and cementing the raw, charmingly scruffy nature of the overall sound. There’s still plenty of high-octane urgency, with even a pop sensibility latching on beneath the anthemic surface, pulling the distorted guitar lines into something more universal.
Alisa shares, “I initially recorded the whole song on reel-to-reel tape. Pretty much everything but the vocals and the synth section at the end comes straight from those tape recordings and was later mixed to sound more modern. It was incredibly fun to use all kinds of “old-school” equipment, and also to distance myself from the computer during the recording process.”
Throughout the album, Stepura’s presence is filled with range, lighting a fire for an exciting chapter in her burgeoning career.
Listen here!
