Photo credit: Michelle Laine
Normally around this time of the year, Panic Manual would have just wrapped up our coverage of SXSW and all the great music we saw (and food that we ate) over the course of a week in Austin. But of course these are not normal times, and the spread of COVID-19 led to the cancellation of this year’s edition of SXSW as well as every other live music event in the coming months that’s not being streamed from someone’s bedroom.
However, while the festival didn’t happen, I did still spend an inordinate amount of time scouring the lineup beforehand looking for new bands to check out so I may as well continue to shine a spotlight on some of the acts that I may very well have seen in some alternate universe where the festival did indeed go ahead as planned.
And of all the bands initially scheduled to play, one of the most exciting discoveries for me personally was Kills Birds. While the band’s name didn’t grab me at first glance, I was immediately taken with the band once I heard the visceral, driving sound of “Jesus Did” taken off the L. A. band’s self-titled debut album. Check out the video for “Jesus Did,” starring the band and a whole bunch of goats, below.