Crystal Antlers, London The Lexington
Crystal Antlers
January 28th 2009
Off the back of a much-praised, self-released EP released last summer and a record deal with Chicago label Touch & Go, the LA five-piece Crystal Antlers touched down in London last week to reward those who’d followed them since their breakthrough and give the uninitiated and curious a taste of what to expect from their debut full length record, Tentacles, due at the start of April.
The venue was The Lexington, an establishment that has been helping to bring a number of upstart American bands to North London for a few months now in its intimate upstairs room.
Those members of the audience who had arrived at the show as a result of buzz and positive reviews may have been given a clue as to what to expect in the build up to Crystal Antlers’ set; their equipment was set up by guys in ear guards, while more well-prepared gig-goers could be spotted inserting ear plugs as the band emerged to begin. And the noise did come, almost immediately. However, Crystal Antlers’ songs are built around organ, waves of guitars and two percussionists so there is enough variety to keep the attention of listeners who might not enjoy ten minute long noise freak-outs.
There were snatches of melody, in the vocals and lead guitar in particular, that reference 1960s psych-rock, and these are married to strangled cries, tribal drumming and vast, burnt-out noise that recalls Sonic Youth or the New York nu-wave artists at their most dark, though transported from the East Coast to the sun-scorched west. When this works, as on the stop-starting, metamorphosising ‘A Thousand Eyes’, the effect is breathtaking; it sounds like the soundtrack to some sort of blissful, beautiful destruction.
By the end of the gig, the band’s relentless energy and constant fluctuations between blissed-out, melodic sections of ambience and brutal assaults of noise had reduced both percussionists to shirtlessness. When so many bands like this tend to get lost in their own noise, it was refreshing to see a band control and pace their set.
On record, Crystal Antlers are a less expansive, more precise proposition, where melody is allowed to bubble to the surface, rather than having to be sought out under the layers of sound, so it will be interesting to see how their live sound will develop in the spring, as listeners grow more familiar with their songs.
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