Brevity meets flexibility in Cymbals Eat Guitars’ considerable sophomore album

by admin on September 8, 2011

Cymbals Eat Guitars was one of 2009′s many earnest newcomers. Their self-released debut, “Why There Are Mountains” (2009), fast rose to inflection for a intricately structured songs, considerable instrumentalism and versatile outspoken work. The group’s latest release, “Lenses Alien,” continues this trend, saying a rope enhance a sound to ring darker themes and some-more concerned production.

Like a marks on a group’s debut, “Lenses Alien” boasts songs that frantically change genres within a camber of several seconds. For example, a lane “Keep Me Waiting” starts out with a unusual noise-rock riff that fast segues into a cocktail tune that catches a listener off-guard. The band’s low-pitched accumulation is one of a many considerable traits, though it’s even some-more important that they can arrangement a extent of their flexibility in two- or three-minute songs.

“The Current” is one of a many sundry songs on a album, and it clocks in during usually underneath 3 minutes. The lane oscillates between wall-of-sound shoegaze guitar work and some-more rhythmic new-wave guitar lines that keep a strain from home on any sold mood or aesthetic. The infancy of a lane is instrumental, building adult to a short, removed outspoken line that concludes a strain on an insinuate note.

While “The Current” is one of a many contemplative, contemplative marks on a album, it is sandwiched between a pop-rock, Big Star-esque “Another Tunguska” and a acoustic “Wavelengths,” creation for a suddenly feeder territory of a album. For a rope that varies severely between styles and attitudes, Cymbals Eat Guitars has a knack for piecing their albums together in a coherent, precocious proceed that flows from strain to strain though a hitch.

“Lenses Alien” facilities marks that are, on a whole, distant shorter than “Why There Are Mountains.” While quicker songs customarily gain on a obvious verse-chorus structure, Cymbals Eat Guitars eschews this proceed for a entirety of a album. One of a many beguiling tools of a manuscript is listening to it for a initial time and not meaningful accurately where a strain is going. It’s roughly like listening to a on-going stone bands of a ’70s, though though a magnificent instrumentals and a extravagant, feathered hairdos that done groups like Yes so strangely alluring.

That’s not to contend that Cymbals Eat Guitars is lacking in corner or instrumental ability — they have both in plenty portions — though their proceed to low-pitched growth and thesis building is some-more understated and reduction constructed than their prog-rock predecessors.

Despite my praise, a manuscript does have a share of shortcomings. The album’s opener, “Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name),” is a usually prolonged strain on a album, clocking in around 8 minutes. This sets adult a kind of bizarre energetic for a rest of “Lenses Alien” since it shows such a different, expanded proceed to songwriting that a rest of a manuscript eschews.

While “Rifle Eyesight” is a plain track, it sets adult fake expectation for a rest of an differently feeder album. The guitars rest a bit too heavily on fuzzed-out tones and groan for possibly to keep a full potency. The same critique can be intended during a few other marks on a manuscript as well, though “Rifle Eyesight” displays this over faith on thrash-out moments many clearly.

That being said, folks with a slant for noisier song will frequency find this a bad trait, nonetheless fans of a group’s mellower marks competence find this trend a small unwelcome.

Regardless, “Lenses Alien” is a good manuscript that shows Cymbals Eat Guitars is on a right trajectory. They’ve been means to keep a elements of their sound that done a initial manuscript so appealing, while introducing new approaches and elements to keep a manuscript innovative as well.