Review Summary: Crystal Fighters deliver a lazy and unoriginal album that falls short of expectations.
For a few years now, Crystal Fighters have been one of my favorite underrated bands. With members hailing from England, Spain, and Italy, they’ve always possessed a globetrotting, genre-mashing spirit that sets them apart from the rest of the pack. Their debut album,
Star of Love, was a sprawling folktronica affair full of wild experimentation. Though it tended to be a bit unfocused, the album was still impressive due to the extreme variety of styles that it touched on. Elements of dubstep, reggae, and folk-pop were all included in one way or another, and it seemed like there was nothing the Crystal Fighters couldn’t do. Their second album, 2013’s
Cave Rave, was a shorter collection that cut away the excess of their debut and settled on a more standard summer-pop sound in the vein of “Plage.” Though a little less enthralling then their first outing,
Cave Rave was still an excellent album that kept me enthusiastic about the group’s future.
In 2014, the band’s drummer, Andrea Marongiu, died from heart failure. This new release,
Everything Is My Family, is largely a response to that event. The album begins with the spoken-word intro “Simplecito,” in which we are instructed that “when troubled times comes, just embrace it, a little kiss, and then let go.” It’s a compelling message, but none of the songs that follow manage to elicit any of the emotion that Marongiu’s death deserves. I don’t know how such a talented group produced such a bland, lifeless album, but here we are. The cover art looks like one of those generic world music compilations you’d find at Whole Foods, and the music isn’t much different.
Everything Is My Family is a truly uninspired experience, and there are some clear reasons why.
1. The Lyrics: Crystal Fighters had promoted a sort of hippie-ish, new-age spirituality in previous songs like “Earth Island” and “Wave,” but always in an elegant, poetic way that wasn’t too cheesy. Not anymore. Many of the lyrics here attempt to compare love to different aspects of nature, but end up settling on the most cliché options available. On “Lay Low,” the aforementioned love will grow “from the top of the highest mountain to the depths of the greatest ocean,” indicating that the Fighters had either just finished listening to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” or were simply too lazy to think of some other geological structures to use in their metaphor. Other lyrics are pure gibberish masquerading as deep, meaningful commentary. One such example is “I saw the future and I see it all around, cuz the past is the present and the future is now” from “The Moondog.” What does this mean? Time is nonexistent? The past and the future are the same? The world may never know. However, the most egregious lyrical moment occurs during “Ways I Can’t Tell,” in which the band’s lead singer, Sebastian Pringle, utters the line “You and me, peas in a pod. You on the guitar, me on the drums.” Crystal Fighters wanted world peace; now they want world peas. If the listener is laughing during an album about your dead band member, you’re probably doing something wrong.
2. The Instrumentation: Remember “At Home”? Perhaps the Fighters’ biggest hit, that song demonstrated how dance music didn’t need any huge drops or howling synth lines to be effective. It was a lovely little campfire song that sounded totally unique and charming. You’d assume that the band would try to replicate the style of their most successful single, but you’d be wrong. In
Everything Is My Family, Crystal Fighters hop on the exhausted EDM bandwagon and abandon all of their creativity in the process. “In Your Arms” is the Fighters’ desperate attempt at replicating a Major Lazer-esque tropical house banger. It’s generic, but at least it has a passable chorus that could be described by some as “musical.” On the other hand, “Ways I Can’t Tell” features a pre-chorus crescendo that seems to be building toward a drop, but ends up devolving into a wall of processed noise that makes one long for the cold embrace of death. Other moments that tempted me to overdose on over-the-counter meds included the stock whistling on “Good Girls” and the “epic” guitar solo on “Fly East.” If the listener wants to commit suicide during an album about your dead band member, you’re probably doing something wrong.
3. Inconsistent Ambition: Speaking of “Fly East,” it’s one of two tracks here (the other being “The Moondog”) which totally abandon sugary, diabetic pop hooks in favor of a faux-narrative style that can only be described as “Crystal Fighters Try To Make A Rock Opera.” These are the worst two songs the band has ever made. They lack any sense of direction, and are both needlessly overlong. It would be an interesting change of pace if the Fighters had decided to make an entire album in this style, but the fact that these two rock opera tracks are placed among a bunch of bland festival-pandering drivel is just plain confusing. Ambition is a virtue, but consistency is more important in the long run. If you think the best way to honor your dead band member’s legacy is by throwing a few undercooked, semi-operatic snoozefests on your album, you’re probably doing something wrong.
Everything Is My Family is a terrible misfire of an album. Much like the Whole Foods World Music Collection™ cover art, the music here is busy, unfocused, and made up of only a few simple colors that are easily digestible. Maybe it was the several lineup changes since
Star of Love that brought the band to this point, or maybe they just ran out of ideas. Whatever it was, it’s hard to keep faith in a group that chooses to pander to the lowest common denominator despite having so much talent. Hopefully this is a one-off fluke and the Fighters will come back stronger the next time around. Until then, perhaps it’s time to give them a little kiss and let them go.
