Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains

Label: Memphis Industries Release date: 26/10/09 Website: http://www.myspace.com/cymbalseatguitars You’d be hard pushed to dislike Cymbals Eat Guitars. Despite band, album and track names that suggest some kind of post-rock nonsense, Why There Are Mountains is indie rock to the core, and blasts you with a finely crafted blend of the best of the genre from the word go. A band like this relies heavily on its influences, and they’ve picked some good ones. Mew and Built to Spill or Pavement are the most obvious ones, as we are blasted with Mew-style screeching and fuzzy guitars that battle with 90s indie rock melodies and synth parts from the instant the album opens with ‘...And The Hazy Sea’. Why There Are Mountains then pretty quickly settles in to a pattern of Pavement-style guitar pop, occasionally mixed up with something different, such as the Ben Folds-y piano of ‘Indiana’ and the Mew or Slowdive influenced spacy shoegaze sound on seven-minute ‘Share’. Even though there’s nothing here whatsoever that will catch you by surprise, or even sound unfamiliar, it’s still a good record. Just not really a great one. If you’re looking for a slightly more shoegazey imitation of ‘Wowee Zowee’ fourteen years on, though, then you need this album. Rating: 7/10