Cerberus Shoal - Garden Fly, Drip Eye EP
(Dutch East)
This longish CD single contains two songs (named in the title), has a running
time of about thirteen and a half minutes, and seems to serve as a
commemoration of yet another lineup change for the group, half old people,
half new.
I'll be honest, this is my first actual listening experience with Cerberus
Shoal. It may be that, for the sake of this review, this is a good thing.
Extensive formal interviews and casual discussions with self professed
"fans" of the band, have revealed a number of varied opinions, which I
summarize this way: 1) The new Cerberus Shoal is different, and 2) The new
Cerberus Shoal isn't very good. Some of these opinions were the result of
listening experiments performed with this very CD, and some of these opinions
were the result of seeing and hearing the band's new iteration in
performance on their very recent tour. However, strangely, all opinions
of experienced Cerberus Shoal listeners were unified in their message, and
the message wasn't very positive.
Me, I think this CD is pretty good.
It's chaotic and weird and sounds a little bit like being at the circus.
Not the real circus, but, you know, some imaginary circus where there's a
lot of chaos and an untalented brass band and a lot of things rattling
around while they're maybe setting up tents or something. And maybe this
circus also happens to have some kind of cool kid open mic poetry reading
going on. It's not a real circus; it's one I'm imagining. So, musically,
it might not be the most brilliant thing in the world, but it's kind of
crazy and fun.
Because of the new musicians involved both with this single and the band's
most recent tour, you might assume that you will get more of the same on
the new Cerberus Shoal LP due sometime soon. Not so. For that one it's
going to be back to the old group, or so I hear. So if you hear this
single and hate it, don't despair, just realize it's just another one of
the group's ~C~R~A~Z~Y~ experiments.
|
