Cymbals Eat Guitars
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Indiana
Artist: Cymbals Eat Guitars
Hails from: Staten Island, NY
Musical Style: Indie/ Experimental/ Rock
For Fans of: Pavement, Modest Mouse, Weezer
Why you should check them out:
Whatever you’re into, Staten Island’s Cymbals Eat Guitars is probably into as well. Too experimental to be called pop, but too pop to be called Animal Collective, CEG is like a four man amalgamation of the last twenty five years of indie rock progression.
Background Check:
When I first heard the name Cymbals Eat Guitars, my instinct was to wince. Images of violent hardcore rock flooded, thinking of the sound surely made when a guitar is consumed by the shrill jaws of a cymbal. Hearing that front man Joseph D’Agostino went by the alias Joseph Ferocious only further drove my fantastical visions of black metal and bloody stage shows.
Turns out I am terrible at predictions, since Cymbals Eat Guitars is one of the most dynamic, eclectic, and accessible sounding bands around today. Just listening to “And the Hazy Sea,” the opening track off CEG’s self released 2009 debut album Why There Are Mountains, paints an epic and artful picture of a young band (D’Agostino is barely in his 20′s) wasting no time in dominating the indie stratosphere.
Building on an early 90′s indie rock base, and launching off with exceptional and experimental flourishes, CEG leave no stone unturned in the canon of modern music. D’Agostino himself is like the love child of Isaac Brock’s yelping and Stephen Malkmus’s ultra hip swagger. The music sways back and forth, often within the same song, from softly crooning piano rock to all out rolling drums and horns backed intensity as the volume and pitch rise higher and higher. Songs like “Some Trees” are down right poppy, reflecting the not so distant past of CEG’s high school incarnation as a Weezer cover band. Though enormous strides have been made musically for the four piece, the essence of that early and pure enjoyment in music still dominates the group. Few bands today sound like they’re having as much fun doing what they do as Cymbals Eat Guitars. And that makes them all the more infectious.
Where you can find them in cyberspace:
On Tour:
