Carcrashlander – Where To Swim?

contributor: St. Even

Carcrashlander bathes amidst the bleak and dusty dreamscape, re-mastered for hi-fi, post-apocalyptic cruising. Where, in Cory Gray’s words, “…the desert heat and open road burn fast the lining of your soul.”

CCL’s waltzing, grooving, jaunty, steady, marching, and meandering rhythms frame an impenetrably surreal shell where, ironically (in the context of such fine drumming), time becomes arbitrary, non-linear. “Rewind the tape i wanna listen to my first mistake,” Gray pleads and, under such circumstances, one would conclude he can.

In “Rosie,” Gray sings it’s one, well-crafted verse before the band launches toward the record’s most satisfying moment: a frantic, horn-driven, Klezmer-esque instrumental anthem with falling-down-the-stairs piano lines, hoots, hiccuping guitars and multiple kitchen sinks.

Where to swim?

Where “…it was the dead of night and the moon was sticking to our skin,” Gray suggests.

Gray’s poignant narrative is quietly confided throughout the record: crisp, clear yet often hovering just above above the din of cars passing to the left, to the right, too close for comfort. Each piece– many meticulously layered with Rhodes, fuzz bass, understated, syncopated, bending guitar melodies, baroque-style piano counter-melodies– is replete with some strange and satisfying noise. Whether regular, old excuse-me feedback, chairs dragged across the floor, or those cars passing, passing– one is invariably reminded they’re still in CCL’s shell. And this is a good thing.