The Body are a Portland duo who make heavy, scuzzy, experimental metal-adjacent music. BIG|BRAVE are a Montreal trio who make punishingly hooky noise-rock. Today, those two bands have come together to release a collaborative album. Both bands have had strange, adventurous careers, but given the music that they’ve made in the past, you could be forgiven for expecting them to make something heavy and fuzzed out on their new team-up. That’s not what they’ve done.

On their new LP Leaving None But Small Birds, the Body and BIG|BRAVE have taken inspiration from the Band and from North American folk-song traditions. The resulting album is heavy, but not in the way you’re expecting. It’s clanging, crashing, twisted Americana reminds me of the music that Angels Of Light were making in the early ’00s. If you were blown away by Lingua Ignota’s recent Sinner Get Ready album, as I was, them Leaving None But Small Birds has a similarly mythic power. We’ve already heard early tracks “Oh Sinner,” “Polly Gosford,” and “Blackest Crow,” and I can assure that the entire album is just as sick as those songs. Stream it for yourself below.

Leaving None But Small Birds is out now on Thrill Jockey.