Author: DC
Wordcount: 976
Progressive hardcore band Crime In Stereo have called their new album “I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone”. On one level this perfectly sums up the lyrical content of the record, which is all about relationships and the difficulty humans face in ever really knowing and understanding each other. More knowingly, however, the album title is a sly nod to the fact that CIS understand that their music is not easily pigeonholed. It’s not quite hardcore, it’s not punk and it’s not post-rock. It’s all of those things fused together, and this both makes things easier for the band (as having a unique style helps you stand out from the crowd) and harder (as standing out from the crowd often means standing alone). The music that Crime In Stereo make is inventive and original, which is a rare thing in music. Many bands lay claim to originality, some deliver, but many flatter to deceive.
Crime In Stereo haven’t always pushed the boundaries in this way. Their music has always been a step ahead of their post-hardcore brethren in its scope and intelligence, but only a step. On their early records, the roots of the band in the fertile Long Island scene of the 1990s clearly showed. Their songs sounded like an amalgam of the edgy pop-punk of the Movielife, the vocal lines of Brand New and the arcing atmospherics of GlassJaw. This referencing of peers and forebears didn’t make the music that the band made derivate, as they always added a little something different. But taken as a piece, the band were solid but not exceptional. This reputation was confirmed by the live shows that the band put on, which were always raucous affairs but often featured short sets and some uneven musicianship.
On their new record CIS have taken a leap forward and made a piece of art that, as the album title suggests, can’t easily be described using simple terms and ready references to their peers. The album is at once musically complex but simple in effect, alloying textures and sonic dazzle with clean song structures and driving focus. The song “I Am Everything I Am Not” is a perfect example of this, combining fiendishly tricksy patterned drumming and sparkling electronics with blunt-force gang vocals and a pair of simple repeated guitar lines that, in one form or another, run throughout the song. Similarly on album-opener “Queue Moderns” ghostly voices emerge from a guitar fuzz, and then the song slams into life in the style of a classical hardcore jam. Throughout the album the band throw curveballs at you, lead you down musical alleys that you don’t expect, but not in a way that feels pretentious or indirect for the sake of it. Everything feels organic, with the various song sections sympathetic and complementary to each other. Key album track “Young” is perhaps the starkest example of this, with a slow opening section with almost monastic chanted vocals suddenly exploding into frenzied wall-of-noise guitars – and even this whiplash a transition seems just right in the hands of CIS.
The same richness and sense that CIS are operating with a higher degree of skill than many other bands in the punk and hardcore scenes comes through when you read their lyrics. The majority of current bands seem to have gravitated towards lyrics that are either purely (dashboard) confessional or so opaque as to be almost impossible to parse by anyone other than the author of those lyrics. Try listening to “Daisy” by Brand New if you need proof of this. I really like that album but even after repeated listens I still have no idea what the songs are about or relate to. CIS, as scene father figures Jimmy Eat World did before them, tread a middle path, presenting a poetic take on some big themes – love, isolation, relationships and… well, police brutality – that is clear enough to understand and relate to but oblique enough to retain a real artistic force and subtlety of impact.
Now that they are touring again after something of a hiatus, the band convince even further. The dynamics of their shows are different to those of almost any other band currently touring. Hardcore bands have often used atmospheric or ultra-melodic interludes to amplify their onslaught, and poppier bands have in recent years turned to punk and hardcore sounds to add an edge to their tunes. Bands like A Day To Remember and Four Year Strong have built careers on top of exactly this sort of fusion. Frequently, however, this duality has always felt slightly bolted-together, a touch strained. This doesn’t bode well when you consider that CIS are trying to fuse together both of those two strands of modern rock, and then adding in spacey atmospherics and some grunge-esque choruses. However, based on their current performances that are managing it and then some. Their recent London show was mesmerising, with the variations in tone stunning and very moving, much more so than a hardcore show has a right to be.
I came out of that show wanting to tell you, and the friends that I go to shows with but couldn’t make it that night, what had made it so special. I wanted to take Crime In Stereo, and try to describe them to someone. I tried then, just I have tried now, during these last four paragraphs. And now, as then, I don’t feel like I have quite managed it. I have drawn out some comparisons, I have tried to pin down just what make their album and shows so special, but I haven’t succeeded. So all I will say is this: check out the new Crime In Stereo album. Go and see them live. And when you love them, pass on the message to your friends. Just don’t expect to be able to describe them to anyone.
