CRYPTACIZE - Mythomania

There are two already fairly well-known names behind the Cryptacize moniker, a band that, barely a year after their debut "Dig That Treasure", churns out a new batch of songs trying to combine melody with a certain compositional unevenness: Nedelle Torrisi, already a darling of a certain indie-folk singer-songwriter scene, and former Deerhoof member Chris Cohen.

The record largely lives up to the artistic premises suggested by the biographies of its two main protagonists, offering on one hand examples of deliberately lopsided, unruly pop, and on the other softer melodies that, especially in its closing stretch, take on the tones of a dreamy, Beach House-style melancholy.

"Mythomania" is an album that lives entirely on a stylistic discontinuity pursued with determination through controlled electric roughness, cleverly arranged dissonances and an overall playful flow, toying with that kaleidoscope of variations so widespread of late, yet without managing to find any real substance within the whirlwind of possible references and juxtapositions. The album's opening indeed seems to hint at a deconstructed, jagged folk-pop record, but the band's more "conventional" side soon starts surfacing, without however being matched by songwriting sharp enough to give the tracks a defined, recognizable identity.

So we move with nonchalance from the bluesy hints of "Blue Tears" to the smoothed-out electric edges of "The Loving Sun" and "One Block Wonder", all interspersed with a subtle psych/dreamy streak that ends up taking over on tracks like "Gotta Get Into That Feeling" and the lengthy "Galvanize", quite possibly the best-realized track on an album that drifts by without any real jolts, despite its many variations.

Like most works that try to build bridges between different modes of expression, "Mythomania" turns out to be a hybrid that isn't entirely without merit, especially in its more languid, slowed-down moments, but one that ultimately satisfies, only lukewarmly, the various expectations at play, whether from the standpoint of (avant)pop experimentation or that of crafting songs capable of sticking in the mind through sound or melody.

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21/04/2009