Album Review: Crystal Antlers – ‘Two-Way Mirror’

Punk and psych mix together and the results are wonderful

What better symbol of DIY self-reliance than the tourvan? Ever since the Merry Pranksters painted a school bus in psychedelic colours and burned out east to introduce the squares of middle America to this new thing called LSD, piling into a cramped vehicle and hitting the freeway has been a key ritual of the US counterculture. With their Raymond Pettibon artwork and pedigree on punk label Touch And Go, [a]Crystal Antlers[/a] would seem to be rockers of a Black Flag vintage.

But the news these Long Beach long-hairs have toured the country in a vegetable-powered vehicle connects them to an earlier, earthier ethos. We’re talking punks and hippies. It’s 2011 – who said you had to choose? ‘Two-Way Mirror’ captures this collision. Their impulse on ‘By The Sawkill’ and ‘Séance’ is towards a raggedy post-hardcore with echoes of weirdo punk groups past – think [a]Les Savy Fav[/a], [a]Meat Puppets[/a] and …[a]Trail Of Dead[/a], all hoarse vocals, flailing drums and guitars in a state of distress. What’s curious is the way they infuse this chaos with strange prettiness.

On ‘Always Afraid’, organist Cora Foxx makes like [a]The Doors[/a]’ Ray Manzarek, drizzling the riffs in groovy Mellotron before a free-jazz saxophone turns up and things get really silly; ‘Summer Solstice’, meanwhile, mints a style NME can only describe as ‘tropical Sonic Youth’. The final ingredient is a pair of slowies, ‘Fortune Telling’ and ‘Knee Deep’, which sound like ’60s psych cuts recovering from a blow to the head. All in all, a weird brew, set to confound anyone who likes their music to fit neatly in a box. Still, it’s hard not to admire these out-there dudes – still beholden to no-one, still chugging around leaving the odour of Brussels sprouts in their wake.

Louis Pattison

Order a copy of Crystal Antlers’ ‘Two-Way Mirror’ from Amazon

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