Track of the Moment-Dust by Crystal Antlers

Noise rock can be a tough omelet to crack, especially if you like vocals. Of all the genres that someone who listens to the radio top forty wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole, noise rock is probably at the top of the list. The way I figure it, Hip-Hop/Rap, Heavy Metal and Noise Rock round out the top three, but noise rock tops the list because of how inaccessible it is. Its one thing to roll your eyes every time the radio takes a break from playing Rolling in the Deep and throws some Niki Minaj your way, or maybe a Kanye cut, not to mention that soft-core sound Metallica has been pushing since the Black Album. It’s another thing entirely to think of noise rock, which lets face it, probably is a genre that gets virtually no radio airplay at all, and certainly none on anything other than a satellite. When it comes down to it noise rock is the antithesis of pop, where the radio gods favor a clean sound with easy to wrap your head around lyrics, noise rockers generally match dirty sounding guitars with garbled or yelled vocals. Bands like Comets on Fire, Lightening Bolt, and Crystal Antlers probably would be enough to send any Train fan running for the comfort of Hey Soul Sister. Anyway, here is the track of the moment a song called Dust by the previously mentioned Crystal Antlers, a noise rock band that is admittatdly less intense than most of its contemporaries. The track comes from their debut entitled Tentacles, a favorite of mine from last summer.