album of the week: 10.4

Cymbals Eat Guitars

Lenses Alien

(2011)

why you'll love it: big sound, lots of guitar

why you'll hate it: annoying vocals, no where near as eclectic as the last album

I'm trying to figure out how to frame the second album by Cymbals Eat Guitars. It's not exactly a disappointment, because I wasn't so awestruck by their debut, Why There Are Mountains (2009). The band has certainly lost something along the way to this release, and that seems to be a subtle unpredictability. I think what kept me coming back to Why There Are Mountains was how contradictory it was track to track. I little bit of shredding here, some ballads there, and brief fits of surf rock and experimentation in between. It was constantly deifying what kind of label I tried to pin on them. Lenses Alien is much more streamlined, and focused on their less interesting habits.

The first thing I realized about this album was how different the vocals feel. They're not only more prominent, but delivered with a constant emo whine. The delivery is quite annoying as well. Joe D'Agostino sings as if almost every line is more important than the last. His swells have absolutely no rhythm or point. None of the lyrics pop out as anything that grabbed me, so I just found it even more annoying that they were being forced out there as if they were poetic genius. I had to check and see if they got a new singer, because I was not getting this vibe off their last album at all.

Musically, there is some decent indie rock fiddling going on here, but much less variation. The first song has a few epic moments, and there is an impressive melody littered here and there through the rest of the album. The vocals and other emo tropes constantly get in the way of whatever good thing they start to get going. Also, these are only moments, which don't really justify the entire song. The only song I can say I enjoy start to finish is "Keep Me Waiting" which is an unapologetic Sonic Youth rip off.

This is honest indie rock. No catch phrases or gimmicks. There is definitely something here for someone to get into. It's got a lot of spirit, but I just can't get into the execution of it one bit. I'm not sure how fans of the previous album have welcomed this release. Maybe I was seeing something in their debut that was never really there, or something nobody else really cared about. Regardless, whatever that was isn't here anymore.