Biography of Little Birdy

You can never tell what lies beneath. Whether it’s the bewitching sea of lights from the Hollywood hills, a fiery new rock'n'roll band on the radio or the perfect Happy Couple … we perceive them all through dark glass and imagination. It's best not to jump to early conclusions.

In the same way, Hollywood - the second album by Little Birdy - is a mystery unfolding; multiple layers clawing their way to the surface.

"I tend to write pretty deep and dark lyrics but the music we were drawn to as a band this time was more upbeat and dancey," says the group’s charismatic singer-songwriter, Katy Steele. "We had a kind of catchphrase while we were making this record: Inside I'm crying, outside I'm dancing. So what we got was a kind of collision of contrasts."

Hollywood makes good on the extraordinary promise of Little Birdy’s acclaimed October 2004 debut - Big Big Love. You could call it a radical evolution from the wiry guitar-pop of its predecessor which went top 5 and sold over 60,000 copies. But it's probably more accurately described in terms of a simmering, four-way chemical reaction.

"It feels like a meeting of minds," says guitarist Simon Leach, who founded Little Birdy with Katy Steele in 2002. "The four of us clicked early on, but it's only now we've all found our places and our strengths. It's like we've all met in the middle and created a little explosion."

Hence Hollywood's combustion of deliciously disparate elements, from the darkly beautiful strings, piano and vaguely oriental melody of the title track to Little the veiled threat of the first, taut rock single, “Come On Come On”. It's an album of firecracker riffs and cool, off-kilter synth squiggles; of gleeful dance/ rock grunt, slow-building arrangements and moody lyrical introspection.

Among the more extreme polarities are the club floor decadence of “Music” and the eerie pastoral lilt of “Better Off Alone”; the crushed piano-vocal foundation...