Photos of Cymbals Eat Guitars at Williamsburg Park in Brooklyn, NY on September 7th, 2012
Photos of Cymbals Eat Guitars at Garage in London, U.K. on January 5th, 2012
Photos of Cymbals Eat Guitars at Mercury Lounge in New York, NY on August 24th, 2011
Photos of Cymbals Eat Guitars at 2010 Haldern Pop Festival in Rees-Haldern, Germany
Photos of Cymbals Eat Guitars at 2010 Siren Music Festival on Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY
Photos of Cymbals Eat Guitars at 2010 Sasquatch! Festival in George, WA
Photos of Cymbals Eat Guitars at SXSW 2010 in Austin, TX
Photos of Cymbals Eat Guitars at 2010 Harvest of Hope Festival in St. Augustine, FL
Photos of Cymbals Eat Guitars at WIRED Store in New York, NY on December 16th, 2009
When Cymbals Eat Guitars came out of Staten Island with self-released debut Why There Are Mountains (QRO review), the indie-sphere took notice – and not just because an alt-band had actually come out of Staten Island. Mountains wasn’t perfect, a jumble of sounds that needed some underpinning, but showed real promise. Unfortunately, with Barsuk follow-up Lenses Alien, Cymbals go bigger without yet getting enough of that underpinning.
Mountains introduced itself well with explosive opener “And the Hazy Sea” – Lenses starts off with the eight-and-a-half-minute “Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name)”, an extended epic that just comes off as confusing. While no other track on Lenses gets quite that excessive, they all consistently feel all-over-the-place, lost in alt-rock ambition.
However, there are still moments of promise. Sometimes Cymbals do provide at least some of that underpinning, such as on “Keep Me Waiting”, the rise & fall “Plainclothes”, and better put together “Wavelengths”, which has actual rhythm and melody. And there are moments on other pieces, signs of something amid the confusion.
The ambitious nature of Lenses Alien means you will probably be told that you ‘don’t get it’ if you don’t like it – and it doesn’t have the indulgences of most albums that one ‘doesn’t get’. But had hoped for at least something in Cymbals Eat Guitars to make more sense than this.
MP3 Stream: “Wavelengths“