Crystal Antlers – Crystal Antlers EP
Touch and Go
From the Comets on Fire school of sunshine-and-reverb-addicted, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink meltingpot psych come Crystal Antlers, the band with possibly the most unjustly off-putting name of the year. If you’re interested, the contest for the band with the most deservedly off-putting name of the year is currently a dead heat between Does It Offend You, Yeah?, and the Ting Tings. Anyway. Despite sounding like they got their name from some internet random indieband name generator, Crystal Antlers are definitely worth a minute of your time, if this self-titled EP is anything to go by.
Opening track “Until The Sun Dies (part 2)” melds crunchy garage guitar with oh-so-sexy organ riffs and breakneck drumwork, the raspy vocals are given the obligatory reverb treatment and everything is buried under a swathe of fuzz – so far, so Comets on Fire. But Crystal Antlers aren’t a straight rip-off: everything on this little record is more tightly regimented than than anything Comets have released. So while Crystal Antlers do mix their influences with gleeful and soulful abandon, there’s less chaos and a more consistent groove present here. However, all the squalling freakout guitar and howling vocals, doomy moments, soulful interludes and proggy tangents that you could possibly want from a 25-minute EP are jammed in, along with some unexpected treats – like the lurching time shifts in “A Thousand Eyes”, the realisation that beneath all that organ, penultimate track “Arcturus” is basically a hardcore song, or finding out that their drummer is called Sexual Chocolate. A six-song psychedelic stocking-filler, just the thing for the fuzz fan who has everything. And, of course, the promise of an album on the way, due early next year.
-Anton Allen-
