Cerberus Shoal - Crash My Moon Yacht
(Pandemonium)
This is the second of three albums recorded with a now-defunct line up of Cerberus
Shoal. The first was Homb and the last will be Mr. Boy Dog, which is supposed to
be released next year on Temporary Residence, Ltd. (and is supposedly a 2xCD). Mr. Boy Dog is supposedly
the next logical step from Homb, which gets me excited because, by
then, they probably have gotten to the point of playing almost entirely drone-scapes with the occasional
bongo, trumpet, or vocal line. Crash My Moon Yacht is heavily drowned in the bongo/organ/xylophone side of the band, with guitar and drums interspersed throughout.
The songs revolve around very obvious rhythms which are accentuated at different
point throughout, whereas their older songs often revolved more around a chord
structure or melody line.
"Changabang" is a song which appears in different form at 3 points on this album.
Once to open the album, again near the middle, and lastly near the end. It unifies
the album as a somewhat "rootsy" outing with it's use of whistles, a cowbell,
trumpet, singing saw, and xylophone. The repetitive xylophone part is the constant
throughout all three versions and sounds like a part Steve Reich would use--except
that Cerberus Shoal only play it for about 3 minutes at a time, while Steve would
have done it for 30. "Long Winded" is one of the "pop" songs on the album with the
vocals pushed up and discernible lyrics. The song could have fit in with the feel of
Homb, but the style of Crash My Moon Yacht has been applied to where it bridges
the two, showing more obviously the progression from the first to the second in the three
album series.
My only complaint is that I don't really like the cover. But, it does fit the tone
of the album well, especially in comparison to Homb which had the warm maroon cover
with a fossil/bone structure where Crash My Moon Yacht is cold and tribal. If you
know you like Cerberus Shoal, this is worth getting. However, if you're wondering
whether you should get one of their albums and see if they live up to their praise,
get Homb and/or And Farewell to Hightide instead.
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