Crystal Antlers
Dylan Owens
Issue date: 3/11/09 Section: Music
Crystal Antlers are somewhat of an enigma. While many have tried, none have really succeeded in pinning them to a genre. Most all of their songs feature the high-energy yet lo-fi yelps of singer Jonny Bell that seems decidedly hardcore, but yet they show glimmers of classic rock, punk, metal, and even jazz in their final product. As not to dwell on classification and try to box them in, I'll simply call them 'rock,' which should leave the door wide open for Crystal Antlers and about every other band with an electric guitar to cartwheel through.
The Long Beach sextuplet's debut LP Tentacles juggles all of the aforementioned sounds seamlessly. In "Time Erased", for example, the intense vocals are layered on top of more traditional rock instrumentals that would sound natural in almost any modern rock band. However, on the following track "Andrew," they take it down a notch, sliding into the cool jazz that punctuates the album's most accessible cut, only to explode two skips later on the short but sweet shot of adrenaline that is "Tentacles."
Speaking of accessibility, Tentacles is not for everyone. The vocal styling that I have mentioned can be enough to alienate most casual listeners on the first spin. I consider myself to be musically open-minded, and I was turned off by them at first. But if you have a taste for grunge/hardcore/post-punk, you owe it to yourself to at least check this one out.
The Long Beach sextuplet's debut LP Tentacles juggles all of the aforementioned sounds seamlessly. In "Time Erased", for example, the intense vocals are layered on top of more traditional rock instrumentals that would sound natural in almost any modern rock band. However, on the following track "Andrew," they take it down a notch, sliding into the cool jazz that punctuates the album's most accessible cut, only to explode two skips later on the short but sweet shot of adrenaline that is "Tentacles."
Speaking of accessibility, Tentacles is not for everyone. The vocal styling that I have mentioned can be enough to alienate most casual listeners on the first spin. I consider myself to be musically open-minded, and I was turned off by them at first. But if you have a taste for grunge/hardcore/post-punk, you owe it to yourself to at least check this one out.
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