Cymbals Eat Guitars :: Why There Are Mountains
New Playing Dates in the EU
A Band You Need to Know
by Nick Parker
A Band You Need to Know
by Nick Parker
Cymbals Eat Guitars are this generation's Pavement
I have an old friend in England who just took the four hours journey down to London from Manchester, to perhaps the England’s greatest venue, the Brixton Academy, to see the re-formed Pavement in action – a decade after their last visit to the UK…
He was rightly gloating over this chance, which I might have killed to share with him. I can’t tell you then how Steve Malkmus sounded, or whether the band manages still to move, amuse and excite in equal measure. We must all remain jealous of my friend’s experience I suppose, but I’ve consoled myself well enough, by seeing a band with a lot of Pavement’s greatest traits, and with some youthful energy to boot.
He was rightly gloating over this chance, which I might have killed to share with him. I can’t tell you then how Steve Malkmus sounded, or whether the band manages still to move, amuse and excite in equal measure. We must all remain jealous of my friend’s experience I suppose, but I’ve consoled myself well enough, by seeing a band with a lot of Pavement’s greatest traits, and with some youthful energy to boot.
New York’s Cymbals Eat Guitars supported Los Campesinos’ latest visit to Boston. It was, like LC’s last pick (the phenomenal Titus Andronicus), a very good match. CEG played most of the tracks from their debut “Why there are mountains” during the set, and from the first swell of opener “...And the Hazy Sea” you could tell they were a great band in their own right, but that they owed a lot to Pavement’s odd song-structures, lilting tone and dynamic range.
A little more like late Pavement material (say “Terror Twilight”), tracks on “Why there are mountains” like “Share” sweep over you loud and clear. It’s fair to say that CEG have created a warm space that I think reaches beyond the derivative into something new. All the same, if you are going to have ties to some musical history, what better history than the one they have chosen?
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