Actually a reissue rather than a new EP and, frankly, closer in feel to an LP then an EP, this self-titled six track sprawling monster from Long Beach’s own Crystal Antlers is back, now also released on vinyl and well worth your valuable coins.
Produced by Ikey Morris, the Mars Volta keyboardist, you’d expect wild flights of fancy, sprawling guitar bits and a flagrant disregard for yer three minute pop structure… and, frankly, you’d be spot on. But Crystal Antlers offer more (and less) than all that. The songs kick, really kick, and quite hard. Johnny Bell struggles to be heard, crying out over the dense wall of guitar, drums, percussion (provided by the splendidly-monikered Sexual Chocolate), organ and assorted fed-back squalls of punk-rawk joy.
No track listing was included, so I’m finding it hard to dissect the Crystal Antlers EP for you in any meaningful way, but then I can’t imagine not listening to this from beginning to end anyway. The long instrumental bits can only be sensibly described as an expansive Lightning Bolt going toe to toe with Man… or Astroman, the production is as close to a decent 60s bootleg of a Roundhouse freak-out as you could hope to achieve and I am so, so, seeing these chaps when they arrive on our shores beginning of next year.
There’s no space for a noodly ballad; Crystal Antlers are simply not interested in the story arc of the trip, the vision of nirvana, the come-down. It’s a six-track map of the messy, confused, fantastic stumble into sunlight after finishing a whole surprising mushroom surprise. Cracking stuff.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: Crystal Antlers, noise, prog, psychedelic, punk, rock
