Crystal Antlers are difficult to pin down. To date, they've offered a couple of LPs and one EP of psych-meets-punk songs that feature Jonny Bell barking and wailing all the while. Certain tags may suit one or two of their tracks—a byzantine auxiliary-percussion psych jam here, a weirdo post-punk freak-out there—but going into their third LP, the only two words that really do them justice are “rock” and “loud.” They’ve jammed econo, taking a vegetable-oil-powered bus on tour and selling copies of their first EP on CDRs packaged in recycled brown paper bags. They’ve nabbed opening spots for Cold War Kids and Gogol Bordello. They’re a mix between a DIY band that might get a wink and a nod from Gregg Ginn and that guy who'll argue “The Rat” is the best thing the Walkmen have ever done.
On Nothing Is Real, the band continue to elude easy classification. That could be due in part to their constant label hopping, which now finds them rubbing elbows with Nosaj Thing, Rhye, and the Allah-Las on the boutique LA-based Innovative Leisure. With each new record (and label), Crystal Antlers jettison what they feel like isn’t working. Now, there’s very little acid-informed psych and none of the proggy-bongo jams. In fact, they’ve let their bongo player go, scaling the band down to a trio with singer/bassist Bell, drummer Kevin Stuart, and guitarist Andrew King. Nothing Is Real is more an album of skeletal prototypes for big-venue rock songs, huge ambitions with shoe-string budget sound.
Many of the moments here come off like the Pixies without the brevity. A neat feeling, really, because if you ever wished “Something Against Me” was twice as long, you could put on “Better Things” and be in heaven. It starts with a blown-out drum track and mosh-pit energy, crammed with fist-pumps and I’m-over-you vibes, Bell hollering that he’s got better things to do. He’s still a great singer who sounds like he eats a steady diet of glass shards. It helps him lead the band in a way many young punks ignore—a dynamic vocalist who wants a textured sound to balance the lead guitars and drums. Just listen to him yawp the chorus to the mid-tempo chug rocker “Rattlesnake”. Black Francis would be proud.
“Rattlesnake” is one of a few songs here with a radio-rock template that's practically waiting for Butch Vig to get a hold of it. The other big one is “Persephone”, an overgrown garage-rock track with stadium ambitions, big guitar solos, and vocals from Bell that sound like he's tearing a hole from his throat to his heart. He spent time recording Nothing Is Real in his own studio, which he said allowed the band to stretch out and allow more pop ideas to enter. When they move into less angular, less organ-backed acid-jam territory, they distance themselves from dozens of faceless California psych rock bands and start overlapping with something bigger. Melodic, top-shelf indie rock acts like the Wrens or Wolf Parade aren’t too far away from where Crystal Antlers are orbiting—at this point, they could open for Kings of Leon and you might only bat one eye at it.
Bell throws the machine into first for a few songs to give the album a nice shape, even if it's already one or two tracks over the line. There’s a return to their lonely desert-psych vibes (“Don’t Think of the Stone”) and a broken Dinosaur Jr. power ballad (“Prisoner Song”) that closes things out with Bell screaming, “Lost my legs and my will to live." Even though it's a throw back to the same melody and lyrics as previously heard on “Rattlesnake”, it's one of many examples of Bell’s splotchy emotionalism that raises the question, what if Morrissey got really into Rites of Spring? He doesn't really offer sharp, pointed lyricism, but he does give the album a haze of depression capped by a few moments of catharsis. It’s a great sound for Crystal Antlers, but the band is still pivoting in place, eyeing possible directions without committing fully to any of them. Which, in turn, makes it hard to commit to the melodramas and broad strokes on Nothing Is Real. Is spiny, unfettered arena rock the groove for Crystal Antlers? It's certainly as loud and rocks as hard as anything they've done before, but we’ll see if they kick it to the curb on the next one.
