Silent Cinema’s debut album has been a long time coming. Since the band’s inception in 2004, it has morphed from a small, indie-folk outfit into a bombastic noise circus boasting as many as 12 members at one point. With Fins and Feathers, the group presents itself as a cohesive seven-piece unit that brings years of live experience into the studio and produces mostly positive results.

There is a great deal of diversity in the eight tracks which comprise Fins &Feathers. Lead singer Micah McKee’s songwriting is solid throughout the album, and at times transcends to a level of brilliance (i.e. “Ghost Band”). The band takes the material in a variety of directions, touching on psychedelic, pop, and even second line. Occasionally the arrangements come across as overly ambitious, but it’s still refreshing to hear a group, especially an indie rock group, that’s not afraid to incorporate such a variety of musical styles.

While the whole album is a fairly enjoyable studio experiment, it’s still the tracks that capture the raw intensity of the band’s live performance that shine the brightest, namely “John the Revelator” and “So Say We All.” The former highlights McKee’s growling vocals over top a sonic landscape rich with distortion-drenched guitars and blaring horns, the latter is a four-on-the-floor pop romp that is begging for air play on college radio.

The biggest pitfall of Fins and Feathers is that some of the tracks come across as unfocused, like the nearly seven minute-long version of “Oyster.” That said, there is still a lot of creative energy presented here, and, in the tradition of other debut albums, the band successfully maps out a number of promising musical directions it could pursue in the future.