Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Review :: Psychotronic Wiretap :: Craft Spells

Craft Spells
Idle Labor
Captured Tracks


Craft Spells :: After the Moment


Spring's in the air and pretty soon it'll be time for a bunch of navel-gazing kids to rent their tuxes, hire a limo, and convince the toothless dude on the curb at Snappy Mart to buy half a dozen bottles of the Boone's. But, wait, you don't need the sweet, sweet shitty taste of Strawberry Hill to make you feel like you belong, little man. Got some prom rock right here for you. Bonus: it won't puke on the pool table or knock you up the week after you get your admission letter. Just don't stare at the album cover for too long.

Idle Labor is diced, strained and canned nostalgia, sure, and I like it. Who needs drums when you've got a drum machine? And who needs actual memories from high school when you can just buy Idle Labor?  Vallesteros will hold your hair back, rock you gently to sleep, and not even muss that Country Kwencher stache you've been working on. Remember: it's just a different, far less satisfying brand of manhood you've attained there.

Like Wild Nothing and Washed Out before them, this Stockton, CA band seems to lurk in the same morose, wall-papered attic world with only a laptop and a stack of Thoreau novels to keep them from going all Emily Dickinson on the neighborhood cats. In case you slept through American Lit: Emily Dickinson didn't do anything to cats.  Led by singer/guitarist Justin Vallesteros, Craft Spells are out on the road now, and they're sure to be hitting mixtapes nation-wide by summertime.

When you finally check the Rock and Roll Hotel's page to figure out that a venue smaller than the backseat of your girlfriend's Prius managed to pack the house for Toro y Moi/Adventure, crack open a High Life or stub out a smoke on your arm, whichever one helps you feel like an achiever, then roll downhill to DC9 for the doubleheader: Craft Spells open and label mates Beach Fossils close.

Hear/here most of the brand new album at this blue/then gray word. Now I just can't wait to hear their G.G. Allin cover.

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