A Cricket In Times Square

A Cricket In Times Square obviously aren’t worried about wearing their influences on their sleeves and nicking ideas from trendy genres. Their amalgamation of fuzzbox garage rock, muddled shoegazing and drugged-out hypnotic psych is as blatant as my description, but they certainly know what they’re doing because they’ve made it work splendidly. This self-titled six-song mini album is drenched in so much reverb and feedback it’s like reliving the Creation years all over again. A lot of contemporary bands have tackled a similar sound and failed, but ACITS aren’t just about hiding behind their effects pedal boards. Singer Michael Tyler knows the right notes to hit and levels to use when balancing his voice out with the overpowering guitar noise. Even though the vocals are faint, they serve their purpose; the voice is just another instrument to help drown everything out. When the epic "Outliving Your Shadow” hits, at the album’s closing stages, it drags by slowly until it ends after the 12-minute mark. Such wanking is often a sure-fire ticket to hitting the stop button, but ACITS have managed to compose a slow-burner that is so lazy and beautiful in its ascension. When the end finally arrives, you’ll wonder where the time went.