Cryptacize - Dig That Treasure
Early one sunny Sunday morning a young lady wakes up from her bed, wipes her eyes and heads over to the CD player. She inserts the album “Dig That Treasure’ from Cryptacize, heads back to the comfort of her duvet and flops down. As she begins to listen to this record in one respect it almost puts her back to sleep, yet in the other, she began to appreciate the simplicity within the record. Then again it is like a Sunday all in itself. It is lazy, relaxing and has no effort put in.
Ok enough with the “she” I am the one listening to this record. As stated in the press release, this album is “a miniature journey, a free fantasia, a dreamy habitat built out of the minimum materials,” blah blah blah. Here is the truth behind the album. Yes the minimal of materials has been used. Some songs are so simplistic that the percussion areas sound as if Year 7s in a music room at school could play them. ‘Stopwatch’ is just one example and while ‘Will Power’ is another.
There are times where the musical background of a track contradicts the vocal rhythm due to the sudden rhythmic inputs and quick key changes. On ‘No Coins’ the musical instruments seem to play their own sound and style regards of each other, they change beat like two songs squashed into one tiny space. The press release says the album is inspired by emotions of West Side Story, guitar gospel, escapism of the Wizard of Oz and otherworldly piano and string strumming. This would probably be why each song holds many different styles, atmospheres with ‘We’ll Never Dream Again’ having a melancholy styling and sounds, ‘Cosmic Sing-a-Long’ has tapping and strumming of guitars, the title track is reminiscent of a song with a 60s style beat while ‘Say You Will’ is the perfect ending.
The lyrics and vocals play a large part in accepting this album. In terms of the latter, the mix of male/female vocals provides a lot of harmonies, but unfortunately solo they fail to entertain. ‘Water Watching Wishes’ is just one track where the male vocals are slow and dreary and ‘The Shape Above’ one track where the female voice is pale and has no effect resulting in an unimpressed listener.
In terms of the way in which each track is lyrical written, the impression that simple is best comes across once again. Uncomplicated rhyming couplets make for the majority of the tracks, lines such as “salt on my tongue, air in my lungs, sound in my ears, nothing to fear, heaven is hear” from ‘Haven Is Human’ and “the orchestra spoken, my voice came out, but I couldn’t tell what the line was about” in ‘How Did The Actor Laugh?’ run through the album.
It is highly recommended that unless motionless music is something you are totally addicted to, this album may be something you would want to miss out on.