Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lenses Alien

Tearing me away from the Joey Barton twitter feed (current subjects: being transferred to QPR against his wishes, becoming environmentally friendly, Shearer's hair) is this new record from Cymbals Eat Guitars. What the Metronomy-loving Barton would think of this racket remains to be seen. It's the kind of dysfunctional, lop sided shards of rock began by the early 90's likes of Shudder to Think, etc. At points melodically challenging yet just when the Simon Cowell in me is beginning to despair during the noisy progressive opener 'Rifle Eyesight' we get a track like 'Shore Points' which is pure tuneful 90's slacker college rock a la our Mike's favourites Archers of Loaf. Luckily this mindset continues through 'Keep Me Waiting' where you can almost smell J Mascis's flannel shirt flapping in a breeze caused by a million effects pedals powered through amps the size of Swansea. Yup, this is well in thrall to the more earnest side of the slacker rock movement, musically there are the twists and turns of 'Wowee Zowee'-era Pavement with keening vocals more attuned to your Buffalo Toms or Built to Spills. They make a good, if derivative noise.