Altsounds - Cymbals Eat Guitars – “...And The Hazy Sea” [Single]

Cymbals Eat Guitars’ much-lauded debut album (“Why There Are Mountains”) gets a full UK release in October, nearly 10 months after its Stateside one - self-released initially by the Staten Island four-piece. In advance of that here is a taster by way of single “...And the Hazy Sea”. However it is only a taster because this is a ‘radio edit’ – and one that shaves a full 3 minutes off the 6.13 minute version on the album (the full-length version is also on the single). Now sometimes radio edits can be useful to reduce the lengthy intro/unnecessarily long fade-out/general noodling on album tracks and they are usually produced to ensure at least some radio play is possible (most stations won't play songs longer than 3 minutes 30 seconds due to the increased royalty payments). But here you lose a lot.

“...And the Hazy Sea” (the full length version) is a shimmering, ebbing thing – it rises and falls like waves, sometimes graceful, sometimes crashing down into the surf. It builds from an insistent siren-like “woah, woah” chant to a plateau of calm, all chiming guitars and glittering keys, before launching into the kind of college-art-rock, full-throated screaming so brilliantly delivered by Pavement and Built To Spill. Another ebb and a slow meandering piano leads to yet more guitar-driven swells and crescendos and more screaming – and yes it does sound a lot like Pavement. It’s quite epic and quite intoxicating. For a band who only formed during 2008, Cymbals Eat Guitars do not sound inexperienced or tentative in orchestrating such an all-consuming tidal-wave of sound. The Radio edit takes out too much and it fails to leave a 3 minute art-pop nugget (and frankly this song cannot be edited into something it is not).

So a tantalising appetiser but not a very filling one in its slimline serving – make sure you dine on the full length version. Cymbals Eat Guitars don’t do things by halves; and neither should you. And if this has whetted your appetite for more of a noughties take on noisy nineties alt-rock, then join me in the dinner queue eagerly awaiting the full serving in October.