Cymbals Eat Guitars – Lenses Alien

- by Thomas

When Lou Reed was asked to describe The Velvet Underground’s sound, he said they sounded like cymbals eating guitars. Hence, the band name. On album number two, Cymbals Eat Guitars take a bit from 90s alternative acts such as Pavement (mixing louder with mellow parts and plenty of unexpected twists and turns) and mix it up with progressive parts to arrive to songs like 9-minute opener “Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name)”. There are definitely parts in the song (and in the other tracks) that have their merits but overall this is just too much. There are too many tempo changes, psychedelic parts that suddenly switch to pure noise before vocalist Joseph D'Agostino goes falsetto on our asses with the rest of the band joining in to keep things fun. It’s like watching an overexcited puppy pee on everything. It’s all fun and games until he starts pissing all over your legs. Experiments are cool and all but if an album takes so much work as “Lenses Alien” to get into, then it’s just not one for me.
Score: 4 out of 10
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