Cymbals Eat Guitars : Lenses Alien

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/cymbalseatguitarslenses.jpg" alt="Cymbals Eat Guitars : Lenses Alien" /><br /> Had hoped for more sense in the confusing Cymbals Eat Guitars. ...
Cymbals Eat Guitars : Lenses Alien
6.0 Barsuk
2011 

Cymbals Eat Guitars : Lenses Alien

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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

{audio}/mp3/files/Cymbals Eat Guitars – Wavelengths.mp3{/audio}

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