The crow family corvidae was named by Dr. Louis Lefebvre to be the most intelligent type of bird on the avian IQ scale. Corvidae the album is an intelligent, lyrical effort, peopled with characters you'd never encounter in the strip malls of suburbia.

The album's wild back roads are populated by gypsies, convicts, thieves, clowns and fiddlers, all of them roaming from bars to parks and sleeping drunk beneath the stars. "Pipeline" tells the story of a village-full of gasoline thieves: "I don't know who put the holes in the pipeline / I don't know why there were holes in the pipeline / All that I know, gasoline flowed from those holes like silver wine." The story unfolds in the wake of an eerie cello line and a foreboding snare drum rhythm; ultimately, a spark turns the revelry into a massacre, leaving only a single bell ringer walking the streets. Circus tale "Human Cannonball" picks up the mood a bit: Myshkin draws on his jazz background, creating upbeat, finger-snapping blues reminiscent of Os Mutantes, and Sailor Banks's trumpet slinks over, under, around and through the jazzy syncopated drums, Myshkin's bouncy vocals and muted guitar.

Organic, smart, and engaging, Corvidae soars above the rest of the folk-singing flock.