<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<review>
  <artist-author>Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains</artist-author>
  <author-id type="integer">81</author-id>
  <body>&lt;B&gt;Label:&lt;/B&gt; Memphis Industries
&lt;B&gt;Release date:&lt;/B&gt; 26/10/09
&lt;B&gt;Website:&lt;/B&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.myspace.com/cymbalseatguitars&quot;&gt;http://www.myspace.com/cymbalseatguitars&lt;/a&gt;

You&#8217;d be hard pushed to dislike &lt;b&gt;Cymbals Eat Guitars&lt;/b&gt;. Despite band, album and track names that suggest some kind of post-rock nonsense, &lt;i&gt;Why There Are Mountains&lt;/i&gt; 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&#8217;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 &#8216;...And The Hazy Sea&#8217;. &lt;i&gt;Why There Are Mountains&lt;/i&gt; 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 &#8216;Indiana&#8217; and the Mew or Slowdive influenced spacy shoegaze sound on seven-minute &#8216;Share&#8217;. 

Even though there&#8217;s nothing here whatsoever that will catch you by surprise, or even sound unfamiliar, it&#8217;s still a good record. Just not really a great one. If you&#8217;re looking for a slightly more shoegazey imitation of &#8216;Wowee Zowee&#8217; fourteen years on, though, then you need this album.

&lt;B&gt;Rating:&lt;/B&gt; 7/10</body>
  <created-at type="datetime">2009-11-03T07:48:43Z</created-at>
  <headline>Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains</headline>
  <id type="integer">1265</id>
  <label>Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains</label>
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  <photo-file-name>Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains.jpg</photo-file-name>
  <photo-file-size type="integer">101500</photo-file-size>
  <published type="boolean">true</published>
  <release-date type="datetime">2009-10-29T00:00:00Z</release-date>
  <review-category-id type="integer">2</review-category-id>
  <title>Why There Are Mountains</title>
  <updated-at type="datetime">2010-02-09T14:49:10Z</updated-at>
  <views type="integer">213</views>
</review>
