Album Review: Crystal Spiders, Molt
It seems doubtful that Molt will be the definitive document when it comes to Raleigh, North Carolina’s Crystal Spiders. Indeed, bassist/vocalist Brenna Leath, also of The Hell No and Lightning Born, recently confirmed work is underway on a follow-up to the band’s nine-song/43-minute Ripple Music debut, and as she and drummer/backing vocalist Tradd Yancey bid farewell to guitarist Mike Delaotch during the process of making the album, with producer Mike Dean — also in Lightning Born, also C.O.C. — stepping in to play some guitar on these songs as well as collaborating on the next batch, which will also have been put together using a methodology born of quarantine-separation and studio-based writing rather than hammering out material on stage, it seems fair to expect that whatever Yancey and Leath (and Dean) come up with next, Crystal Spiders will have shed this skin and formed a new one in its place.
Given that flux, it becomes all the more appropriate to take Molt on its own terms and to appreciate it for what it is. As a follow-up to the then-trio’s aptly-titled 2019 Demo (review here), it is an expansion of those ideas — one song is carried over between the two releases in “Tigerlily” — that keeps the focus put forth there on melody, groove and tone. Molt is not without a harder edge and faster shove, and one need look no further than the second-cut title-track to find it. Following opener “Trapped,” “Molt” is brash and engaging in kind.
Its first half speeds through a ’70s-style riff with Leath‘s verse lines surfing atop, and even after the tension built is released in a sudden fuzzy turn circa two minutes into the total 3:37, they subsequently turn to a dual-channel guitar solo, drum showoff and boogie/crash finish. And “Molt” is not an aberration in this regard. The later pair “C-U-N-Hell” and “Gutter” course along in no less energetic fashion, unimpeded by the thickness of the guitar and bass tones surrounding as the drums cut through and offer propulsive motion.
There’s a middle ground to be found as well in “The Call,” with a Motörheadular first half leading to a fluid jam-out later backed by a subtle weaving layer of lead-tone, and nothing throughout is quite so clear-cut, one or the other, but Molt‘s primary impression is in fact that thickness of tone and a less fervid tempo. Mood fuzz. The brooding launch Molt receives at the outset of “Trapped” is a tell for what’s to follow, and even as that song comes to life, its nodding pace remains indicative. That’s not to say Crystal Spiders want for energy — far from it, as the chug-meet-toms breaks in “Tigerlily” show, let alone any of the actually-faster material — but that their purposes are subtly multifaceted, and some of their strongest moments come in those restrained-seeming parts.
It’s not quite a question of patience in craft, because if anything, the band feel actively like they’re setting up the next burst, and that has a tendency to make their offerings more exciting since one never really knows when it’s coming (at least on a first couple listens), but one way or another, the rolling and crashing behind Leath‘s vocals in “Chronic Sick” makes a high point of an emotional low, touching on garage doom in the riff and wading deeper into murk than just about anything that surrounds — something the band seems to acknowledge as well in backing it with “C-U-N-Hell,” which also serves as the centerpiece because of course it does.
Between that, “Gutter” — which one assumes is the actual emotional low point being portrayed here — and the beginning stretch of “The Call,” Molt finds its biggest and most resonant kick in this post-“Chronic Sick” section. Is that where the molting happens, and where one skin is shed in favor of growing a newer, more resilient one? It would be easy to say yes, perhaps, were it not for the finishing pair of “Headhunters” and “Fog,” which feel distinct unto themselves in their approach.
The former is a pointed departure, and short at just 2:25, but more than an interlude. With handclaps and far-back drums from Yancey behind a watery vocal from Leath, “Headhunters” moves fluidly through a couple verses like a momentary dream — there and gone and you’re not quite sure if you were conscious for it happening. And as the finale, “Fog” lives gloriously up to its name, creating a murk of mellower fuzz riffing that finds Leath likewise more drawn back on vocals as opposed to some of the belting-out done earlier in the record, and it ends up underscoring and furthering the sense of mood that Molt has sought to create all along. As a last impression, “Fog” is the most melodically encompassing, with self-harmonizing and the patience in delivery that other songs hinted toward.
Entirely possible it’s a statement of things to come for the band as they grow into a more complex outfit on the whole, able to foster the dynamic that occurs here between songs within them as well, but again, what matters more is taking Molt on its own merits. On the most basic level of put-it-on-and-hear-it, it’s an assembly of wholly unpretentious kickass tunes. That’s as plain as it can be said. The collaboration between Leath and Yancey that will serve as the foundation of the band going forward is obviously newer in terms of stylistic development, but as the groundwork for future growth, there’s little more one could ask than what’s being delivered here.
And if these are indeed hints of things to come as the band continues to flourish, all the better, but that possibility does nothing to sap the record of its force of execution, its tonal impression, or the mood it evokes, and while there are dangers as “Tigerlily” gives way to “Chronic Sick” that the band might get caught up in their own mire, they never do, and even as they wade through “Fog” at the end, their sense of purpose remains clear. Whatever path their next release might find them walking, they’ve gotten off on the right foot.
Crystal Spiders, Molt (2020)
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