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On their second album, the Brooklyn quartet sinks deeper into their dread-filled chill-out sound, but they become sharper and more focused in the process.Â
On their 2019 debut,
,Crumb slowly lowered dazed psych-rock into a loungey abyss, evoking the feeling of one long summer day spent entirely inside the endless buzz of an anxious mind. It was unnerving and terrific. Before forming at college in Boston, the Brooklyn-based quartet honed their chops in low-profile jazz, soul, and rock groups. After a couple EPs, they flourished in the softly lit chasm of their debutânow
Ice
Melt captures a band breaking free of the trance for little more clarity.
New Music Reviews (5/3) KEXP
Each week, Music Director Don Yates shares brief insights on new and upcoming releases for KEXP s rotation. These reviews help our DJs decide on what they want to play. See what we added this week below (and on our Charts page), including new releases from
Dawn Richard,
Dawn Richard –
Second Line (Merge)
This New Orleans singer/songwriter/musician/producer’s sixth solo album is an adventurous blend of R&B, house, footwork, New Orleans bounce and more, combining moody synths and propulsive rhythms with her elastic vocals and lyrics of love, lust, struggle and resilience.
Dinosaur Jr. –
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29 · 04 · 2021
There are times when an album’s title can be literal. This is very much the case with
Crumb’s second album ‘Ice Melt’. Throughout its 10 tracks ‘Ice Melt’ has a languid quality to the music. It’s like watching ice cubes melt on a table in the sun. You can see the puddle of water getting bigger, yet the cube appears to stay the same shape. As the songs progress, they appear to keep their form, but at the end you get the impression that sections disappeared along the way and what we are left with isn’t what we start with. This is down to Crumb’s line up and their ability to diaphanous soundscapes that bring in jazz, hip-hop, shoegaze swoons, electronica, and pop motifs.
Rolling Stone Menu Psychedelic Indie-Rock Band Crumb Comes Back Down to Earth
The band discusses the metaphysical questions that informed its new record
Ice Melt Courtesy of Third Pupil
In conversation with the band Crumb, the word “fluidity” comes up often. First, when they talk about recording their second album,
Ice Melt, in Los Angeles. “As a place, it looks one way, but it may actually be another way,” singer-guitarist Lila Ramani muses. “It looks so serene and peaceful, but to me, there’s an underlying darkness and hellscape energy to it.” There’s also the group’s more metaphysical preoccupation with liquid. “I feel like we were exploring a lot of water imagery,” multi-instrumentalist Bri Aronow says. “Just being more fluid in thought, challenging your beliefs, challenging yourself.”