There was a bird Matthew Ehler had seen in his backyard before, but hed never really stopped tolook at it. A red-headed woodpecker, a strange-looking bird. One day, it caught his attention.Ehler and his Cliffdiver bandmates had recently been to hell andback. In some ways, theydbeen making that return trip a few times over for much of their lives. After years of more self-destructive escapes from everyones respective demons and traumas, Ehler started to embracethe stillness of birdwatching. It was something to occupy my mind, he explains. His newhobby wouldnt just lend Cliffdivers sophomore album its title, but signal a spiritual overhaulrippling through the band.In the two years since their debut albumExercise Your Demons, Cliffdiver had been back outhitting the pavement, building a name for themselves in the pop-punk and emo landscape. By thetime they finished opening stints with Bowling For Soup and Less Than Jake, and an array offestival dates includingSad Summer Festwhere they played with bands like Taking BackSunday, Hot Mulligan, The Maine and morethe septet was ready to hunker down and writemore music. Riffs started arriving in January of 2023, and an album calledbirdwatchingwascompleted by March of this year. That makesit sound simple. But the journey to their secondouting was full of complex emotional reckonings.The origins of Cliffdiver go all the way back to 2017, when Ehler wanted to move past theunabashed Blink-182 worship of his previous band. Over the years,lineups shifted andexpanded, until early 2021 when the seven-piece had settled into Ehler on guitar, Joey Duffy andBriana Wright on vocals, Gilbert Erickson on guitar, Tyler Rogers on bass, Eliot Cooper ondrums, and Dony Nickles on sax. All of them veterans of Tulsas vibrant and interconnectedmusic scene, their collaboration kicked up steam fastover a host of EPs, singles, andExerciseYour Demons, they went from DIY shows to headlining Tulsas legendary Cains Ballroom.By the time all that happened, the members of Cliffdiver had entered their thirties. WhileExercise Your Demonsalready portrayed people aging and trying to figure themselves out, it wasstill filtered through the chaos of waning youths. The album was a frenzied party that, in turn,depicted frenzied partying throughout.birdwatchingis the work of a whole different band, analbum specifically grappling with abandoning cyclical behaviors and addictions that no longerserve you. Its pop-punk maturing into grown-ass adult travails.WhileExercise Your Demonshad some markers of a pandemic albumall the bandmembers in isolation, writing aloneDuffy characterizesbirdwatchingas a collaborativelabor of love. Cliffdiver began piecing ideas together, then decamped to Barber Shop Studios inLake Hopatcong, New Jersey for thirty days to work with producer Brett Romnes (Hot Mulligan,Mom Jeans, Free Throw, and many others). On some level, they were freaked out: They didntfeel like they had all the material necessary to be ready for the sessions. This ended up being apro, not a con. The last album, we had all these songs and this story, Duffy explains. This oneisnt a big narrative, but a collection of moments, and we got to fine tune it in the studio. We hadthe freedom to say Lets get weird.You cant talk about us as a band going forward without that trip to New Jersey, Wright saysof the recording session. Joking that Romnes put in extra camp counselor hours, the bandcredits him not only with a steady hand when encouraging them to push their own creativeboundaries, but also teaching them how to function more healthily as an ensemble.We always say Let go and let Brett, Duffy quips. Hed always say, Are you afraid? Theresno fear in this dojo.Romnesmightve been speaking more about studio experimentation, but it was a refrain relevantto the themes ofbirdwatchingtoo. Across its twelve tracks, the album has no shortage ofheaviness, from schisms with dogmatically religious family members, to sleep paralysis demons,and detaching oneself from abusers. Throughout, Duffy and Wright candidly grapple with mentalhealth strugglesless than mired in those moments, they are processing how you can makemiles of personal progress and still lapse into frustrating spirals. For Duffys part, it was the firstalbum he wrote after getting sober amidst the release ofExercising Your Demons. There wassome apprehension that I wouldnt be able to write like I used to, he admits, before joking: Itwas good to see without the alcohol Im still insane, so theres plenty of things to draw from.Just a few months intobirdwatchings gestation, the whole band went through a horrificexperience together. While on tour, a freak accident led to a truck chain link flyinginto their vanand nearly killing Rogers. While Rogers made a miraculous recovery, the brush with moralitystuck with all of them."Being that close to death will change anybody, Ehler says, who actually picked up hisbirdwatching habit in direct response to the van accident. Making it known how real it is.Itmade me stop caring as much about things like being online, partying, etc. Ive slowed down onso much stuff.It was such a major event in all our lives that came out of nowhere, Duffy adds. The aftermath,wracked with pain and anxiety, found Cliffdiver collectively adopting healthier habits andchanneling it into the music. That energy was transformed from something very negative tosomething I think can help people, Duffy continues.Wright had a prompt for the album: No more wallowing in all the bad things that have happenedand endless self-analyzing, but presenting these struggles in the context of growing up, healing,moving on, and locating some sense of hope for the future.birdwatchingtakes all Cliffdiversindividual battles and turn them over in different lights, approaching even its darkest momentswith a deft and often sly hand. The bands personal dynamic shines through in songs wieldinghumor as a balm: Wrights song about herestrangement from her religious family nods toTheRighteous Gemstoneswith its title Baby Billys Bible Bonkers, while Going For The GarbagePlate namechecks an infamous Rochester junk food staple as a metaphor for remainingsusceptible to depressiveepisodes. At times, Cliffdiver uses two approaches at once: In morefrantic moments Duffy and Wrights vocals can weave together or rail against each other,equally symbolizing the furious internal dialogue of an anxious person or the cathartic purge ofgetting out of your own head, and out of your own way.By Duffys estimation, Cliffdiver have learned to approach these stories with a differentperspective. No longer simply introspective, the songs onbirdwatchingare a dizzying array ofreferences, of moments big and small, old wounds alongside brand new awakenings. Lead singleDayz Gone is an anthemic banger, Wright howling about the banalities of tour life. BlackLodge Breakfast Burrito (Limited Time Only) is another cheeky title for a song processing themore insidious ways mental health issues creep on you. I wanted to stop talking about whatswrong with us, Wright explains. I wanted to find out what happens after youve done all yourintrospection and kicked some addictions. A yearning to move past your shit. A yearning to feelgood enough for other people. Sometimes that takes the form of Duffy and Wright callingthemselves and their own behaviors out. Elsewhere, it manifests in songs like Lord HaveMercer, a revenge fantasy directed at past abusers from different band members lives.birdwatchingrefuses to tie a neat bow on a narrative likeExercise Your Demonsdid. When afriend heard album closer I Reckon You Might Could I SPose, they told Duffy they weresurprised: Cliffdiver usually tried to end on a more triumphant note. But the songmulling onthe dangers of nostalgia culture, and hiding away in the past being afraid of the futureresonates with all the snapshots presented across the album. From its earliest moments, too,birdwatchingdoesnt promise to have all the answers. Quite the opposite, actually: In an openerhilariously titled Thirty, Flirty, And Thriving!!! Duffy and Wright join their voices to singabout having turned thirty and not knowing shit, and the fact that they wont know shit by forty,either.None of this is about defeat. Its about small scale revelations. The album is a more mature takeon what hope is, Wright says. Hope for me is knowing shit can be managed.birdwatchingisnt the sound of everything getting better. Its a real life take: Things get better,but they also get worse again, and better again, and worse again, and nobody will ever have it allfigured out. In each snapshot, Cliffdiver offers a companion for those ups and downs.We can make changes for the better so it doesnt hurt as bad as it used to, Duffy concludes.Once we realize were not the only ones that feel this way, you can say: Maybe the system isfucked, and maybe were all fuckedbut were not alone.