The realest-deal storyteller in indie-rock today is the Tampa-born, New Orleans-based singer/songwriter Thomas Dollbaum, and he comes to Spirit fresh off the release of his newest album Birds of Paradise; his most powerful and dynamic work yet.
Following up his critically acclaimed Wellswood (Big Legal Mess, 2022) and Drive All Night EP (Dear Life Records, 2025), Birds of Paradise is a goodbye letter to lost loved ones and former selves. These songs find Dollbaum searching for acceptance in the transient in-between places: Florida’s pine flatwoods, backroads leading to 1-95, where birds fly across the water. And even though the ghosts of his alt-county predecessors Townes and Molina are definitely present, on Birds of Paradise, Dollbaum emerges from their shadows–waving to the past, sounding all the more like himself.
Alive and echoing like the poems and short stories you can’t shake: coyotes howl, birds fly south, kids chase rabbits through the sugar cane, and cigarettes are four dollars a pack. Through Birds of Paradise Thomas Dollbaum reminds us where we come from–the things inside ourselves we’ve forgotten–we just needed Dollbaum to show us. Here’s how to look back without fear or shame. Here’s authenticity.
