If anyone had charted Seabird’s potential career arc based on the Cincinnati band’s first five years, its current trajectory would have been somewhere above the stratosphere. The fact that Seabird is not enjoying animal-topiary-and-guitar-shaped-swimming-pool levels of success at this point, not to mention the four-year gap since their last album, should not indicate a lack of initiative.
The fact is the Morgan brothers — Aaron on vocals and keyboards, Ryan on guitar — were being forced down a marketing path by their record label that they had no interest in pursuing and courageously chose to determine their own destiny with their self-released third album, Troubled Days.
Although it took a year for Seabird to stabilize after vocalist/keyboardist Aaron assembled the band in 2004, Ryan’s addition in 2005 solidified both the lineup and the band’s Coldplay-meets-Snow Patrol sound. After a debut EP, Spread Your Broken Wings and Try, Seabird signed to EMI, then shifted to the label’s Credential imprint for its 2008 full-length debut, ‘Til We See the Shore. The following year saw the release of Seabird’s sophomore album, Rocks Into Rivers, and a rise in the band’s profile with song placements on Grey’s Anatomy, Pushing Daisies, Numb3rs and The Ghost Whisperer, as well as a Cincinnati Entertainment Awards win for Artist of the Year.
Seabird celebrates its new release Friday on Fountain Square, headlining the free MidPoint Indie Summer concert.
