With the eponymous first track on his second album A BETTER PLACE, M.Byrd creates the promised better place: the song wraps itself around its listeners like a warm blanket of security and joy of life. Not without a residual drop of melancholy, of course. Because M.Byrd knows that it is the yearning side that protects indie pop of this style from being arbitrary. AI generator vanlife romance and stuff. But no, M.Byrd gives the songs the depth they need to stay in your memory, to stand out and not give you stomach ulcers.
Editorial recommendations
His solo career began as a bassist on Ilgen-Nur’s POWER NAP tour, and in 2023 he released his first album as M.Byrd, which – like IlgenNur – sounded wonderfully un-German. A BETTER PLACE is about big questions about leaving (from Hamburg) and arriving (in Denmark), about becoming a father, small changes and big ones. Coming of Age, the sequel, so to speak.
It sounds wonderful on “Always On My Mind”, a kind of meditation on love and life, but with electric guitars. Sometimes bordering on kitsch (“underwater”), but perhaps just the right temperature for cold winter days.
This review first appeared in Musikexpress 12/2025.