So I get Crown Larks’ Blood Dancer LP in the mail and it looks great, sort of like an old Shearing Pinx record jacket. And it hits me: What if these guys suck? Please don’t let them suck, please don’t let them suck because so many of these indie-rock bands that approach me cold seem strangely unaware of what it is I do here at TMT (which is play audio detective on a small scale for the limited-run crowd). Like, if your band sounds like Vampire Weekend I’m not sure if I’m the guy you should be talking to. Thankfully (ugh, ‘thankfully’), Crown Larks don’t suck at all. They’re actually fuckin’ awesome, a dive-bombing combination of, to use recent examples, Freak Heat Waves, a much less lofi Puffy Areolas (I’ll admit I’m basing this solely on the surfeit of saxophone), the aforementioned ShxPx, and maybe even a recent darling like Fat/Bad History Month. I dig the way the songs don’t follow a pattern yet still seem to carry a rhythm, if not a tune, through all the jukes and jives. Drummer Bill Miller (of Bill Miller’s barbecue? anyone in Texas reading this?) is a sick fellow who loves attention (no no, that’s a good thing y’all) and scraping his sticks over things you’re not supposed to scrape yr sticks over, while singers Lorraine Bailey and Jack Bouboushian do a reasonable job of leading the proceedings with a low-key, albeit tuneful, motif. The bass player (ok apparently that’s also Bouboushian) isn’t just a patsy either. You might even say the whole attack is channeled through his low-key approach to groove and flow that never gets too funky for comfort. Without the reliability of the bass there’s no way Miller would be able to flourish as he does, like a sweaty animal in heat with permission from his band members to play it to the hilt where intriguing fills and tiny, barely noticeable diversions are concerned. Blood Dancer is impossible to predict, in a quality way, not a rambling, shambling, gambling way, though chances are taken. It’s brave to self-release such a head-turning LP independently, too. In the best-case scenario that wouldn’t matter, yet it worries me, so if you’re a music fan snatch this piece of wax up and if you’re a small- to mid-sized label, give Crown Larks the chance to jump aboard your listing ship of dreams. Bloody-right, fine show boys and gals…
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