Family Average: 5/7

Hailing from Italy, the trio that is Crimen debuts with “Silent Animals,” a collage of noises and styles circling around the world of noise rock, punk, and psychedelia. The family dizzily kept up with this album while producing thoughts that almost mirror the blended style of the music.

Listen along on Their Bandcamp and read on to find out:

The first three tracks are ominous and suspenseful. I’m anxious and on edge. They’re good though, well-organized noise. This music can intense up a movie scene for sure, like a drug-induced spiraling evening or driving around. Puts you into a state with that trance inducing guitar.

“From My Bed” is slower but haunting I love that repetitive simple subtle methodic guitar riff that stays around.  I really like where this one went, it may be my favorite.

From that song on we've had a changeup, I can still see this in a movie but it's a bit different now.

“Left behind” is very different, more indie, showing the depth and variety of the album.

This album is a beautiful piece of music, profound beyond its aesthetic beauty.

Then “supermarket” is so upbeat and jangly.

Each song surprised me with a different sound and feel.

The last song “Hit Mania Death” wasn’t my favorite but I still didn’t dislike it.

Their guitar is so methodic and entrancing throughout each of their styles, I love.

6/7

Oh my gosh this low down grimy punk music. The parts that got real loud had me in a great mood. My head was spinning trying to make all these connections to great 80’s post punk bands. There were bits of new wave, jangle, and noise all swirling around in this soup. I thought the addition of more electronic dance-y songs was a welcomed addition to the mix. You can see clearly the benefit of Simone Greco and Patrizio Strippoli’s years of experience playing together. They are both so in sync when it comes to curating a certain vibe for their sound. That might sound really vague, but all I mean is that you can see the artist’s intentions clearly align as you go through the album. Like I said in the beginning that grimy low down feeling is just pouring out of every song, along with little bits of spooky kinds of sounds.

The stand out track for me would have to be “Batida”. Personally I would have rather this puppy kick the whole thing off. That driving blend of punk, and dance did well to tee up the rest of the album for me. Only complaint I have about the whole thing is how the drums were recorded. Specifically the cymbals. The crash sounds so shallow especially in parts of songs where they should be ringing out all intense like. Ah kind of a nit picky thing, but overall a real great bunch of songs.

5/7

The range on this album is impressive, spanning from throbbing, almost malevolent tracks to more dreamy and hypnotic pieces. It’s adrenalized, with an interesting mix of cycling guitars and slow moving percussion. The tracks pulse with reverb and a sort of chanting, breathy vocalization. Combined with throbbing bass and heavy drum kicks, it’s all a bit dizzying and head-spinning. A mix of noise rock and some punk, I caught wind of a shoegaze influence and a heavy dose of some modern psychedelic sounds. At times I drew parallels with a range of other groups, from Tears for Fears, to Jesus and The Mary Chain, and even some Kasabian. However, their style sort of flip flops from track to track,  which is equally impressive and jarring. On one hand it shows their range, but on the other it suggests they haven’t quite sussed their own sound yet. Regardless, Crimen knows how to create a fantastic buildup, as seen in the track “Above the Trees (Rockets).” Slow, steady, and pounding, it crashes into you and feels true to its noise rock influences. All in all, it’s stomping, at times even delicate, and a solid showcase of talent.

5/7

So this band’s got a hodgepodge sound to it. It was driving but I’m not sure where it was going. Each one had some kind of fast or incessant underlying beat to it, some more prominent than others (the one in “Hit Mania Death” dominates the track it’s p loud). Besides that, they’re also strung together by like this static ocean feeling, like everything’s being perceived through a low res led screen, and a speaker made out of cut up solo cups. I don’t mean it was bad quality or anything, rather that was the aesthetic it seemed to go with, the distortion was done with purpose. Fuzz Club was a good name choice, cause fuzz does help describe how it feels. Most of the vocals and even instruments had this wavy reverberation and echo to them. They sounded like what ripples look like, especially in “Batida.” For a lot of the songs it was hard to understand the lyrics, but every so often you’d be able to catch them say the song title or something related to it.
Even though the vagueness is the style, things get a bit muddled at times and I started to lose focus. “Six Weeks” felt more grounded than the others so it was easier to follow. I could get where “Left Behind” was coming from, but it could have gotten there with less time. Unless this is one of those jams that you put on in the background and zone out of. “Supermarket” was a bit surprising cause while it kept the album vibe it also had a fun and beauty kick to it. The staticky, heavy reverb quality was there but it worked well with it.
It didn’t really stick with me personally cause I like when songs have more defined substance. But they’ve got the messy trance punk feeling down pact, whatever they’re doing I think it’s working.

4/7