Cave rave. Crystal Fighters

In the summer of 2011 'Plage' was a single that was unavoidable on Dutch 3 FM radio. The up beat song did not so much chart high, but sort of hung in there for ever. Nearly a half year. The album that it was drawn from, 'Star of love' did not impress me much. That being the reason that Cave rave remained on a big pile of albums that I intended to listen to, that sort of never happened. When my MP3 player mysteriously went from album to shuffle, as it is sometimes prone to do, this fun upbeat song came by: 'LA calling' by Crystal Fighters. That was the beginning of the fun trip called Cave rave.

Crystal Fighters is a band from London that also gets the mention that it is a UK/Bask band as there clear links to the Bask province in Spain. The band presents a modern mix of pop and electronic dance without being afraid to bring in rock guitars as well. Next to that the folk rock explosion has not gone by unnoticed to Crystal Fighters either. The influence from Edward Sharpe and ...Of Monsters and Men is quite obviously. Boy - girl singing, high sounding acoustic guitars, up beat and happy. It suits Crystal Fighters quite well.

Cave rave lets a few different songs loose on the listener. The slightly exotic sounding songs, the folk rock and beautiful ballads like 'Bridge of bones'. It is a song like this that totally won me over to Cave Rave. Piano driven, the song stands out. If anything it is close to a James Blunt song, but better than anything I ever heard from him (with a nod to his number one hit 'You're beautiful' from me here.). 'Bridge of bones' is a fine crafted mini opera. Not because of any high brow sympho rock antics, no because of the turns the song leads us on and the way it is spread out from piano to full out mid-tempo rocker. Live it should be a killer if the audience kicks in at the end.

'Plage' is a sort of dead weight on the necks of Crystal Fighters' song writers. How to top a novelty hit? A band usually can't and shouldn't try to do so. This band seems to have tried a middle way on Cave rave. A song like 'Love natural' seems to try to evoke a 'Plage' atmosphere. As far as I'm concerned it succeeded. 'Love natural' has more depth and is more varied. It shows that Crystal Fighters is trying to find its way in the long shadow 'Plage' is throwing over Cave Rave. This second album of the band is one giant step forward. Together with producer Justin Meldal-Johnson (Paramore, M83, Neon Trees and a near endless list of studio credits) Crystal Fighters has found a beautiful pop voice that makes it a lot of fun to listen to. A perfect summer record and undoubtedly a great record to fight off the darker days that are coming towards us in an unstoppable way. The intricate vocals of 'These nights' virtually guarantee it.

The further I get into the album, the more pleased I become. Also I'm just about convinced that the first single of the album 'You & I' is one of the weakest tracks on it. Perhaps radio friendly, but Crystal Fighters shows the world that they can do a lot better. One of the better pop records of 2013 of this year, competing with Mister & Mississippi for best folk rock record of 2013. No small words are used here and deservedly so.

Wo.

You can listen to 'You & I' here.