Crystal Antlers - Tentacles [Album]

Touch & Go

March 26, 2009, 11:59 PM

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The great debate over whether or not rock music has lost its originality, its innovators confined to history, is an oft debated one, and will be ‘til the prodigal cows return home to feast on the fattened son. What is not so widely discussed is just how unoriginal band names have always been, but how they now seem to follow trends. Since the turn of the century everyone has seemingly ignored the parody that was The The’s name and returned to The, as we have had everyone from The Strokes to The Heart Attacks. More fleeting was the revival of the Black bands. Following on from Sabbath and Flag have been The Black Kids, The Black Lips and The Black Keys to name but three (all three of them scoring even more minus points for also beginning with The) and now we have the invasion of the Crystal bands. First we had Castles, and now Stilts and Antlers. I’m just waiting for The Black Crystals...oh wait - The Black Crystals on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads.....God give me strength! Ironically their percussionist adopts the moniker of the band from the Eddie Murphy film ‘Coming to America’. Unoriginal it may have remained, but regardless of this, Sexual Chocolate would have gained instant kudos had the whole band taken it on.

Thankfully Crystal Antlers’ music is not so unoriginal. We’re not talking groundbreaking here, but they have a definite style, when all their parts are summed, that is certainly distinctive. Some bands produce albums that leave you wondering if they know who or what they want to be. Crystal Antlers know exactly who they want to be, and how they want to sound, it’s just the listener that has difficulty working it out. Trying to categorise them is tough. They are pitched predominantly in the rock camp for sure, but wander through its fields of psychedelia, heavy, classic, prog, drone and even leap into a little soul (“Until the Sun Dies (Part 1)”). Tracks such as “Dust”, “Memorized” and “Glacier” take almost Wolf Parade-like forms (if an even more raucous Dan Boeckner sang Spencer Krug’s songs), whilst closing track “Several Tongues” begins with the same throbbing pulse as Devotchka’s ‘How it Ends’, before the blood flows enough for them to completely wig out - just how they seem to like it (especially live).

Overall though, if the album is hamstrung at all then it’s from its own familiarity. Ironically Tentacles isn’t as many-limbed a beast as they have previously appeared. Their music may have seemed like a welcome breath of fresher air to a largely stagnant year last year, in the form of their fantastic debut EP (entitled simply EP), but Tentacles sees Crystal Antlers repeat a winning formula a little too often, lacking the greater diversity of its shorter forebearer. If only for this reason then it will be interesting to see where Crystal Antlers go from Tentacles. Hopefully as many places as we know they have the vision to go.

Track List:

01. Painless Sleep
02. Dust
03. Time Erased
04. Andrew
05. Vapor Trail
06. Tentacles
07. Until the Sun Dies (Part One)
08. Memorized
09. Glacier
10. Foot of the Mountain
11. Your Spears
12. Swollen Sky
13. Several Tongues

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