Cerberus Shoal
Crash My Moon Yacht

These six guys from Maine who call themselves "Cerberus Shoal," were born in 1995 as a punk band and it must be said they've come a long way to arrive at an album of this caliber. Their 1999 debut "Homb" hinted at a future full of uncertainties, even though some had already noticed the high level of creative originality they had achieved. With the punk period firmly closed in the drawer, this "Crash My Moon Yacht" presents us with a group completely "detoxified" and ready to play music of a completely different nature. The meeting with Thomas Kovacevic and Tim Harbeson, coming from Tarpigh, a band from a very different musical background, contributed significantly to laying the foundations of their new sound.

This new musical journey could be described as "music for imaginary soundtracks", a kind of manifesto of intentions that also fascinated Tom Verlaine and Craig Armstrong: indeed, with this work, Cerberus Shoal confronts a similar soundtrack to images that do not actually exist except in the dark depths of their minds. Predominantly acoustic, quirky in structure, absolutely unpredictable in framework, with a grandiose and vaguely ambient breadth, if the expression helps. The production completes the circle: Steve Drown did a more than excellent job enhancing the acoustic and ambient dimensions of the pieces, demonstrating thus to be one of the most enlightened sound engineers around (no wonder he is rumored to have already been contacted by Radiohead!). The anguished and poignant notes of Tim Harbeson's trumpet rise lightly in the air to chase uncommon or little-used sounds, generated by the dholak, the xylophone, the banjo, Farfisa organs, and pipe instruments, under light and particularly enchanting percussive carpets.

In general, one perceives something arcane and sacred, a strange decadent and lo-fi folk, not far from Morphine, Yo La Tengo, and close to Godspeed You Black Emperor. The sounds are released lightly, passing from jazz to contemporary music without caring to remain anchored to classifications or boundaries of any kind: here noise-making goes hand in hand with cacophony, symphonic music with post-rock, giving all the same dignity in a mixture of genres that is nothing short of fascinating and highly personal. A statement of free anarchy in music that seems to have been born after years spent hitting hard in "damned" punk; a transition probably necessary to rise from the ashes and move on to a better life (musically speaking, of course!). A beautiful and poignant album (unfortunately not easy to find).