First Look: Cymbals Eat Guitars – “Why There Are Mountains”

Tell us, Cymbals Eat Guitars. Why are there mountains? To climb, and play seven-minute jams atop, obviously. On their debut album, the New York band dabbles in early Pavement’s frantic guitar spasms and an airier prettiness more in line with late ’90s Britpop acts — often in the same song. Their fresh handling of loud-quiet-loud is commendable, as is their willingness to stretch their songs past the 6-minute mark even as they cut off a number of tunes at a terse 2 minutes — no middle ground for these guys. It’s bit of a pastiche, sure, but a chaotic and winning one. As like-minded, undersung Rawkblog favorites from the past few years such as Evangelicals and Paper Airplanes can attest, sometimes just reaching someone else’s summit is progress enough.

Cymbals Eat Guitars – “Wind Phoenix”: mp3

(Why There Are Mountains is self-released and out now; visit the band on MySpace)

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