Crystal Antlers Music Reviews & Coverage
Crystal Antlers in Live D.C.
Crystal Antlers / True Womanhood @ Black Cat
October 29, 2008 by Phil
all photos: Irfan Khalil and Jane Briggs
Before yesterday, I’d never left a show feeling like I just got jumped and beat up for my lunch money. And yet, after watching Crystal Antlers’ set at the Black Cat backstage Monday, it would be hard to sum up in words exactly what I felt other than to tell you it hurt: my ears, my bones, my head, everything. But, as these things usually tend to go, it was in the best possible way.
There are few bands who received as much press coverage and great buzz after last week’s CMJ Music Marathon in New York as Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers. I’d been a fan of theirs for about a month or so but with the absurd amount of media and blog attention they’ve been receiving lately, it seems like this week was apparently the week to catch their live show. And going in, I’d heard nothing but raves: earth-shaking, eardrum-crushing, intense; all the good stuff you like to hear before seeing this kind of band. There’s apparently something to it as Crystal Antlers and their intense blend of raw punk, stoner rock and soul pretty much tore the Black Cat down, leaving in their wake a half-full room of either dead bodies or converts.
[...] After a short break, the room went from silence to caterwaul in a matter of seconds as the band launched into their set. Crystal Antlers draw from a pretty eccentric sonic palette and it shows: EP and performance highlight “A Thousands Eyes” incorporates everything from a Latin-tinged bassline during the verse to a mournful, melodrama-laden chorus. There’s something for everyone in these songs: driving, sloppy shoegaze, spazzy surf rock and tripped-out, crunchy psychadelia. At the end of the brisk, just-right 45-minute set (sans encore), the entire audience erupted in applause and busted out their most effective melted-brain facial expressions, even though not a whole lot was said. Granted, this could have been due to everyone’s inability to hear anything for like two hours afterward.
No Crystal Antlers live review is complete without mentioning Sexual Chocolate.
Who? Oh, just their inane, mustachioed percussionist, Damian something. It doesn’t even matter what his last name is because to anyone who’s seen him perform, he’ll always be Sexual Chocolate. A one-man bongo powerhouse, Sexual manages to turn erect nipples into an art form; theatrical lip-synching into a heartbreaking experience; a staged dance routine set to a dizzying guitar freakout into a must-see. Despite totally not fitting the aesthetic or stage demeanor of the rest of the band, S. Chocolate is a such a totally hypnotic, bizarre figure that he elevated the already stellar performance to an entire different level by being the most watchable thing on stage (though to be fair, organist Victor Rodriguez did at one point bust out a blistering Rhodes solo with help from the side of frontman Jonny Bell’s face).
Don’t go see Crystal Antlers if you’re lame. Don’t see them if you like bitching to your friends how loud the band is playing or if you enjoy spending all your time at a show in the back, chatting up any attractive someone who crosses your path (you probably won’t be able to hear them anyway). Stand in the front and take as much clothing off as possible. You may not start to samba or anything, but you’ll move. And without a doubt, by the end, you’ll feel like someone hit you in the face with a brick. In the best possible way.
Crystal Antlers in the Washington Post
Crystal Antlers: Short, Sweet and Dynamic
by Patrick Foster
Wednesday, October 29, 2008; Page C05
Cyber-speculators are already casting ‘09 as the year of Crystal bands (Castles, Stilts and Skulls have all hardened into buzz-worthy acts), but it’s the Crystal Antlers who’ve shown the most sparkle, adding to their burgeoning rep by wowing New York at the annual CMJ Music Marathon last week. The main calling card of the quintet from Long Beach, Calif., is a homemade six-song EP (recently reissued by their new label, Touch and Go) that blurts forth a kaleidoscopic goop of late-’60s styles, creating a dense-’n'-dizzying sonic landscape that is often tough to slog through.
Appearing at the Black Cat Backstage on Monday night, however, the Antlers brought it all back home: The group played with a charging energy that captured the soaring excitement of its primal American garage rock and psychedelia concepts and throttled its excesses with precise ensemble communication.
Staying within the bounds of its self-titled EP — the entire set took 35 minutes — the band warmed up with a short instrumental, then waded straight into the vortex, following drummer Kevin Stuart’s rhythms, which pitched expertly between garage-rock sprints and oceanic body floats. Any melody the band allowed into the brew came from Victor Rodriguez’s roller-rink organ swells (rarely has Garth Hudson been evoked in such a psychedelic way) and the hollered vocals of bassist Jonny Bell, whose gasps on “A Thousand Eyes” and “Vexation” were drilled so far down into the mix that they functioned as another instrument. And during “Parting Song for the Torn Sky,” the Antlers further impressed, playing as if the 30 people in the room were 30,000.
Crystal Antlers in the Tripwire
After that I headed over to the Fader Fort to partake in some drinks and to check out the Crystal Antlers. This ended up being one of the crowning performances of the whole event. The Crystal Antlers were rock gods shredding effortlessly through arena sized classic rock guitar riffs and heady drums beats, while the lead singer tore the place up with his monstrous shrieking vocal delivery. It was a high-octane performance that took no prisoners, a rock n’ roll show at its best! After that mammoth performance came the classic-rock sounds of Kuroma. It was a pretty good show, but it was nowhere near as exciting as the Crystal Antlers.
Crystal Antlers in the Soundword.com
Another way FADER wins: free drinks, and usually a buzz band or three a day. (The place is a pit of regret come day last… but so goes too many SoCos.) The Fort was where I finally tied into the third Crystal band you Need To Know, Crystal Antlers, although that shouldn’t have been hard given the number of times they were booked around the city. But if you’re throwing them in the pot with Women, The Muslims, etc. for your Overbooked @ CMJ ‘08 trend pieces, do it in terms of scheduling alone: as Brandon and I discussed earlier today, from Crystal Antlers’ self-released EP earlier this year to becoming Touch And Go’s most interesting recent signing, the Long Beach crew entered the fest as a band a lot of people had heard about, but not seen: Judging from talk on the streets and their quick blistering FADER set, they more than delivered.
In fact, if one band left CMJ buzzier, it’s likely these psychedelic punks. It’s difficult describing their anthemic blend of later day post-hardcore piloted by shimmering but crunchy guitar riffs, a ’60s boogie organ, the dynamic drums, and all that howling .. so just go to a show.
Crystal Antlers in the OC Weekly
Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers, who this year already netted an 8.5 on Pitchfork for their self-released EP (which was subsequently sntached up by Touch and Go) and just last night played the Bowery Ballroom in NYC as part of the CMJ Music Marathon, saw their good buzz streak continue with a mention in national mag Entertainment Weekly’s music section this week (the issue currently on stands with the cast of the more boring than ever “Heroes” on the cover).
Getting in EW is an accomplishment in itself for a band these days; the music section is typically about three pages an issue that usually just amounts to a handful of record reviews (the new Toby Keith gets a B+!) and a chart. But the pub here, like pretty much everything written about the band, was positive – a quickie one-sentence review in a mini-article/illustration about the current ponderance of indie rock bands with the word “crystal” in their name (also mentioned: Crystal Stilts, Crystal Castles). “Epic psych-rock chaos, excellent for cathartic scream-offs and dashboard air drums during dull commutes,” say EW.
Crystal Antlers in the Kevchino.Com
Next up was Vivian Girls and damn were they good. The distortion that the three-piece packed into their brief set was intense. All No Age comparisons were dropped…this was an original band that writes catchy but fuzzy and thunderous songs. They rocked through the brief ditties from an album that will be on many top ten lists at the end of the year and they set the stage for Crystal Antlers.
Now, just know I went to the Bowery for Vivian Girls but left a big Crystal Antlers fan. Mr. Kevchino compared the band to Mars Volta and yeah, I could see that. But they were better. The set was backed with energy that never seemed to dive. One track after the next had the audience moving almost uncontrollably. Crystal Antlers sort of felt like a jam band with a purpose. They were much funkier than Mars Volta and one of the best performances of the whole of CMJ.
Crystal Antlers in the Artsbeat.com
Two of the busier multiply booked bands at CMJ are Crystal Stilts and Crystal Antlers, names that are easy to confuse for those who’ve never heard either one. Here’s the cheat sheet:
Crystal Antlers performed a daytime show at Piano’s on Thursday. (Nicholas Roberts for The New York Times)
They’re from opposite ends of the United States: Crystal Stilts are from Brooklyn, while Crystal Antlers are from Long Beach, Calif. But the real difference is a few years–specifically, a few years in the mid-1960s
Crystal Antlers move the clock forward to somewhere around late 1968, when song forms had opened up to wander the psychedelic wilderness. Crystal Antlers’s songs might first waft into earshot with some echoey noodling, then heave into motion, seesawing between rocker and waltz. Electric organ and guitars that are woozy with vibrato and wah-wah wander side by side, sometimes intersecting and sometimes colliding; there’s a lot of tambourine-shaking and the vocals are mostly howled: “Why do we have to die?” Sounds like the late-1960s never did.
Crystal Antlers in the NY Observer
[...]before catching the Crystal Antlers’ fantastic 7:30 set. Long Beach’s Antlers (not be confused with the Crystal Castles or the Crystal Stilts) play vintage psychedelia with tons of angsty energy—all wah-wah guitar and seething organ. Each song sounded as if it could fly off its axis at any moment, which, of course, was precisely point.
Crystal Antlers in the NY Press
The day, however, belonged to Crystal Antlers, a Long Beach based five-piece that featured one guy playing auxiliary percussion for the group (the also had a drummer) while successfully sporting a hoodie-over-ball-cap-with-sunglasses-at-night combo (that’s no easy feat). Oh, and he was awesome, as was everyone else in the band. I wrote down a bunch of contradictory adjectives as the band switched from stomping waltz to psych freak out within the same song: sturdy, teetering, mammoth, controlled, etc. I didn’t take too many notes, though, ’cause they rocked too much and some steady body movement kept me warm as I watched them tear it up at Todd P’s outdoor jam.
Crystal Antlers EP Review in Pitchfork Media
EP [self-released; 2008]
Rating: 8.5 — Ian Cohen, June 11, 2008
There aren’t many bands I’ve listened to more than Crystal Antlers this year, but I still don’t think there’s an optimum way to hear them yet. If the buzz sends you to MySpace, you’ll get their impact but not their dynamics. Catch one of their cramped live shows and you’ll get their in-it-to-win-it intensity but not their expansiveness. Hear their self-released EP, and you’re getting closer– besides existing at the cross-section of so many styles, the disc finds the band at a more important nexus of potential and realization. In person, Crystal Antlers look like outcasts from six different bands, and at various points on this record, they sound like it, too: Merging psych, garage, lo-fi, prog, and countless other influences, the group easily maintains consistency despite a complete inability to be pinned to any specific movement or trend (so long as you’re not counting the increasingly frustrating trend of unimaginative bandnames).
You might come across comparisons to Les Savy Fav, an appropriate call if you consider it shorthand for “relentlessly energetic band with crowd-pleasing stage antics.” EP’s opener “A Thousand Eyes” is evidence enough of that: Beginning with doomy, lo-fi minor arpeggios, it soon explodes into a Latin-influenced rumble before the band piledrives into a swaggering psych hook, the track sounds something like if Comets on Fire inverted their ratio of chaos-to-craft. Beneath the squall, “Vexation”’s headsnapping pace and flesh-searing bass riff could be a Stooges-style punk shoutalong. The organ riff that “Owl” pogos on is a found relic from late-1960s Venice Beach with a monolithic vocal melody. And like any long-haired throwback worth its bongos, EP ends with the loosest and longest number, the seven-minute swamp lurch of “Parting Song for the Torn Sky”.
As much as it diverges from the brain-frying aim of typical psych-rock outings, EP is an unorthodox summer record– not so much for driving to the beach as actually being in its sweltering grasp, equal parts scorched earth and wide open spaces. Credit to producer Ikey Owens (aka Mars Volta’s keyboardist– there’s hope!) for finding enough room for every instrument, few of which act in their traditional scope. If you find yourself humming any of the riffs, odds are they’ll come from singer Jonny Bell, who treats his bass like a six-string while guitar (check the appropriate titanic “Arcturus”) and organ provide shading under an ozone of reverb that, like early My Morning Jacket, gives an impression of an expansive soundworld the band can grow into.
It’s tempting to be patient and call this disc a stopgap on the way to a triumphant debut full-length. But EP is plenty substantial as is; at 25 minutes, it’s only a few shy of Nouns or, more to the point, any number of psych-rock classics from decades past. Of course, if you’re still waiting on further evidence of how much there is to like about these guys, consider that I waited until the end of this review to mention that their percussionist is named Sexual Chocolate.
