Some albums encapsulate certain seasons and feelings, and Crystal Fighters’ sophomore effort, Cave Rave, does just that, begging to become the anthem of the summer, preferably during bonfires, road trips, and late night dance parties. The Spain-dwelling six-piece wrote the record during a two-month spell cooped up in the hills of Basque then headed to Los Angeles to record with Justin Meldal-Johnsen (M83, Air, Beck), and the finished product possesses elements from each drastically different location and state-of-mind.

What made Crystal Fighters’ debut, Star of Love, so appealing was the band’s ability to seamlessly incorporate traditional with contemporary – taking classic Basque instrumentation and stringing it with upbeat, electronic dance music. If this method was successful during that first album, it was perfected in its follow-up. From the first notes of album opener, “Wave,” Afro Beat percussion buoyantly pushes the song along as vocalist Sebastian Pringle sings in his nonchalant tenor. As he jubilantly exclaims, “We’re riding on a wave, baby / We’re on the same wave,” during the chorus, the music swells and crashes, emulating the monstrous ocean.

This worked up, epic songwriting continues through the album’s single, “You & I,” and rhythmic, folk-tinged, “LA Calling,” and arguably peaks during the record’s highlight, “Separator.” Pringle asks “Can you separate a body from mind and the soul?” as amped up, hi-hat focused percussion taps along at an accelerated rate and a droning synth riff hazily attempts to balance out the pace. Reverb-drenched guitar comes in and the song suddenly shifts to an aggressive state, with Pringle and singer Mimi Borelli declaring to “Feel love inside your heart forever more,” amidst frenetic instrumentation. From there, the mood transforms yet again as bongos join clanging drums to create a latin-tinged, hip shaking dance beat. This cycle continues during the song’s four minutes, keeping its listeners on their toes and exemplifying all of Crystal Fighters strengths in one track.

The second half of Cave Rave sounds like the comedown from a night of excessive partying. Though the World Music beats of “Love Natural,” and the electronically charged “Are We One,” revive the album near the end, the rest of its B-side consists of acoustic tracks and ballads. Though “Bridge of Bones,” pays homage to Paul Simon’s Graceland-era pop before growing into a grandiose, choral-like ballad, its place is not on an album like this. It’s important to give listeners a break from high energy tracks and diversify a record’s track list, but in this case it doesn’t quite work as well as it should. But hey, all good parties end up dying down, and their best memories are the ones that last.

 

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