crystal swells

Crystal Swells 'Goethe Head Soup' starts off with no introduction whatsoever, exploding straight into extremely noisy, heavily distorted rock and roll. There's a thick layer of digital grunge over everything, like the whole album was run through some old Boss distortion pedal as a mastering stage. Underneath the layer of dirt, one can faintly make out vocal harmonies and frantic, well played guitar solos.

There's a vibe of country twang, heavily reverberated vocals, and an intense amount of energy. The second tune turns down some of the dirt and comes in with moderately clean drums and bass. There's still a crackly digital sheen over everything, but the cymbals are clean and you can hear the separation between the guitar and bass. As the song drives into the chorus you can almost see the meters peaking in the red as the vocals overload their reverb effects before sliding back into clean guitar and bass which is actually quite catchy and menacing.

'Dead Awake' starts off like a Saturday morning cartoon theme song run through a blender before descending into another dirty pit of cavernous moans. I think the most interesting part of this album is the separation between timbre and musical style – the band mashes up what sounds like evil indie rock ala Old Time Relijun, with Beatles and Kinks inspired pop hooks, with the production of a harsh noise band. It's an unusual combination, and it works for people who happen to enjoy both of those disparate ideologies. Ignoring the accidentally clichéd use of 'Crystal' in their band title, these guys come across as both fresh and suitably 'ironic attitude' enough for most fans of modern music in 2011.
The album continues on this path of rewarding melodies and experimental production, though one can't help but think this style would have worked better 40 years ago with analog tape machines and mastering to vinyl records. To be fair the album is primarily available on cassette tape, which we unfortunately were not able to access, as our only tape deck is sadly broken.

The title track, 'Goethe Head Soup,' showcases the most experimental concepts song wise, with long single chord drones underneath Fugazi style vocals buried in more distortion and reverb. The song churns out without much focus for a few minutes, eventually finding itself stuck in an endless loop like the end of Liars record. This is no doubt an attempt at a trance like state ala the Velvet Underground or Wooden Shjips, but it's up to the individual listener to determine if it works for them. White noise cymbals take over the last half of the track before everything starts to break down and musicians are bent over their pedal boards frantically twisting knobs to find the limits of sound.

Fortunately the album doesn't end there and the thematic vamp of “Swamp People” snaps the trance and takes you to a 1950's movie theater or a post-ironic stage play with an old school monster jam. Overall the album will appeal to fans of Tyvek and new school garage noise – if you're young and hip enough to allow your ears to adjust to the traditionally terrible production style, there are plenty of catchy melodies and compelling jams to keep you interested. It would be interesting to see these guys live as they no doubt put on an intense show, but for now check out the band camp, get the tape, and hope for a full Canadian tour. - Noisography

Up the road a bit from me is Vancouver, British Columbia. The music scene up there mostly is a mystery to me. But if Crystal Swells are any indication, I'll have to pay more attention. The sound is garage/noise pop, and is played with plenty of energy. This may be the perfect soundtrack for your end of the week pints. Hey, I think I'll try that...

You can stream their entire six track January 2011 release, Goethe Head Soup, here. If you like it, it is $2 US at the Bandcamp link below. And it may be worth it just for the name of the album. - when you motor away

Dum Dum Girls i Wavves spotykaja Thunder Buffalo (ich opisywalismy kiedys. O, nawet tu), czy Fugazi.



To juz drugi material kanadyjskiego kwartetu Crystal Swells. Pierwszy, wydany w maju ubieglego roku, rózni sie troszeczke od Goethe Head Soup. Na debiutanckiej EP-ce mielismy stycznosc z mocnym, garazowym graniem pelnym przesterowanych gitar i szalencza perkusja. Na tej kasecie (tak, material zostal wydany na kasecie) pazur gdzies zaginal, zespól pozbyl sie tego bijacego z ich gry chaosu dajac upust rozleniwionym, surf rockowym dzwiekom.

Muzyka na Goethe Head Soup przywoluje na mysl amerykanskie kanadyjskie przedmiescia, ladne, pelne zieleni ulice, przy których stoja jednopietrowe domki z duzymi garazami. W jednym z takich garazy Crystal Swells komponowac musieli te szesc kawalków. I choc przebijaja sie w nich elementy surfowego grania, to jednak nadal czuc brud i calkiem niezly noise. W kilka miesiecy przeciez nie wygladzili tak do konca swojego grania. Nadal mozna zauwazyc pozostalosci z ich zamilowania do np. Fugazi. Do nich akurat mlodzi Kanadyjczycy sa porównywani. Czy slusznie?

Posluchaj sobie kasete w wersji mp3, mozesz tez ja kupic. - Fuck You Hipster

On most days, rock is better when it’s raw. When you find a band that reminds you of a raw open wound, you’ve hit the jackpot.Crystal Swells sound like that giant gash you put in your knee — you know, the one from that unbelievable skating accident? It wasn’t worthy of stitches, but you had to consider a trip to the emergency room for about 30 seconds.

On their album Goethe Head Soup, Crystal Swells offer up six tracks of fuzzy garage punk that are not to be missed. These songs are well constructed and perfectly executed. Goethe Head Soup is the perfect soundtrack to picking gravel out of your latest road injury. Check out “Mellow Californian” below and then head over to Bandcamp and grab all six songs…preferably on cassette. - Knox Road

This one may already be on a few playlists out there, though here she is again.

Crystal Swells, On this record label with this many people, quench a thirst that so many of you have for the resurgence of lo-fi beat-driven surfin' rock. Their first track, Mellow Californian, is anything but mellow. It's downright pounding and would probably stress out hoards of elderly. The second song is also worth mentioning, as Crystal Swells takes a little more accessible approach to some weirdo/punk handy work. With the title and song tempo combined, it's not hard to imagine some sort of stop-motion animation of a florescent green or magenta hair'ed tan skinned troll cruisin' around in Barbie's finest fiberglass corvette on an unsuccessful prowl for some easy troll babes. Now to skip to the title track - a dreamy peaked out 10 minute drone fest that will melt your ears, your brain, and your psyche depending on your intoxication - definitely a zoner. Crystal Swells sure do put together some swell lo-fi punky surf 'tude. Buy the digital tracks for 2 bucks (recommended) buy the cassette for 4 bucks (also, recommended) find the .zip (thrice recommended). - DIEPOP

Crystal Swells are garage rock weirdoes from up North that I wouldn’t bring home to dearest mother. However, if given the opportunity, I would blast their audacious tunes over Mama’s house as loudly as possible. On “Patent Trolls,” Crystal Swells come off as tactfully as that muscle filled bully who’s kicking sand in your face while you’re at the beach. “Patent Trolls” was taken from Crystal Swells’ album, “Goethe Head Soup” which is available now on their bandcamp page. - Ventrox

I am not sure if having ‘Crystal’ in your name is a sure-fire indicator of mastery of the hipster zeitgeist these days or, given how quickly fashion flits from one fancy to another these days, a whimsically retro affectation. A bit like releasing things on wax cylinder and the like.

The music is fucking ace though. It’s loud, raging, lo-fi rock and roll with such an incredible about of aural mess added to the guitar that it sounds more like someone gunning a pony car half the time.

I am, as you are probably wearily aware by now, absolutely loving this kind of stuff at the moment. It’s just loud, boisterous and loose and feels like an absolute shitload of fun to play. It certainly is to listen to anyway.

Music like this, for all I am a considerable sucker for the growl and the noise, depends more than most on simple, quality riffs and stuff you can hum. When your stuff is so simply assembled, you really need the elements themselves to be very good, or you’re going to become very boring very quickly.

Fortunately, Crystal Swells are not short of riffs. From the menacing growl of the first song I heard, Patent Trolls, to the cocky swagger of Dead Awake and the furious bluster of the awesomely titled Waco, Wasilia, Waikiki, this is a foot-tapping, head-nodding, table-drumming pleasure.

Then, just as you could be forgiven for thinking that this is no more than simple pop music with a shitload of noise added (which it is, mostly, but there’s nowt wrong with that) comes the throbbing, hypnotic, headache-inducing nine-minute epic that is Goethe Head Soup‘s title track. Bloody hell this is good. It touches on shoegaze, C86, CBGB’s and all sorts, and just batters away at your head until you either lapse into a blissful noise coma or you start bleeding from your eyes and run screaming from the room.

LOUD PLEASE! - song by toad

What do you do when you live in the ‘burbs and don’t want to waste your life smoking outside the local Mac’s? Toss on your baseball cap, turn on the Salvation Army microphones and start “Wakin’ up the Neighbours”. Crystal Swells’ ‘Ridge rock stands as a testament to the power of suburban detachment, throwing Blink 182 and Spacemen 3 through a coffee grinder and coming up with just the right mix of snotty attitude kept on track by massive backbeats and gut-searing guitar leads. Exuding a youthful Teenage Shutdown LP energy, Goethe Head Soup is stacked with syrupy vocal lines hiding under feedback peaks and red-lined valleys, with occasional Lally-isms and the almost obligatory no-chord garage-jam of a title track. “Waco, Wasilla, Waikiki” takes all of this, compresses it, and proceeds to grind and spatter teen lust all over the fiendish beach party it emanates from. Essential Vancouver. - weird canada