by Caroline Nieto (@caroline.nieto)
Crumb has proven that they can toe the line between eclectic and grounded. The airy, dream-like quality of Lila Ramani’s vocals and Bri Aronow’s synthesizer are backed by the confidence of Jonathan Gilad’s percussion and Jesse Brotter’s punchy bass lines. AMAMA, the band’s third studio album, is the strongest collaboration of these skills so far. The vocals have a cloudy quality reminiscent of shoegaze—at times, the lyrics are almost indecipherable. The listening experience of a Crumb song begs equal attention to written themes and musical motifs. Instead of a lyrical deep dive, the band’s songs are best analyzed through letting the curated mood of each track wash over you. On AMAMA, these atmospheres are created through intense repetition, where certain words and phrases are echoed again and again throughout a song.
The repeated lyrics serve as the thesis statement of their respective songs. The album’s sixth track “Crushxd” only has one complete verse before “I’ll never see you again” is repeated five times over a cymbal-heavy drum line and a descending keyboard. “Sleep Talk” briefly tells the story of a new relationship before repeating “let it go slow” eight times. It becomes clear over the album’s duration that the honest, interrogative themes depicted in each song did not come instantly or easily to the band. Discovery, longing, and solitude are the hallmarks of this work, and they are portrayed unabashedly.
The album’s first song, “From Outside a Window Sill” establishes the lazy, comforting feel characteristic of so many Crumb songs. The lyrics evoke visions of homesickness and nostalgia while the tempo moves at a walking pace. However, this sound lulls listeners into a false sense of what the album might be. By the second song, “Side by Side,” it becomes clear that AMAMA does not limit itself to the relaxed ambience of the first track. This song, which begins with the somber “I change my life for you,” pairs the distinctive dream-pop quality of Ramani’s voice with an intense, almost stressful percussive line. While the vocals soothe like a lullaby, Gilad’s drums are the voice urging you to wake up—the rapid motion of the snare and cymbals evoke the motion of pattering raindrops during a storm.
“Side by Side” isn’t the only song where the percussion is a standout. “Crushxd” features a percussive line that feels like an indie rock bossa nova before it rises in intensity at the song’s climax. “Sleep Talk,” perhaps the most experimental track, is completely at the mercy of its tempo changes, beginning at a breezy pace, then picking up. The song details a forward step in a new relationship—moving in with a partner—while sonically resisting the stability expected of domestic life. The song’s erratic tone captures the fear of diving too eagerly into intimacy, a theme common to the album as a whole. “(Alone in) Brussels” targets isolation explicitly, joining the canon of indie songs named after European cities (namely Fenne Lily’s “Berlin” and Wolf Alice’s “Lisbon”). Again, the words and music seem to be telling different stories, where solemn lyrics hide behind a metallic soundscape and pulsing beat. Ramani sounds like she could be singing into a telephone, placing a long-distance call from a far away city. It’s details like these that show the band’s covert cleverness—a trust in their listeners to feel the message of the song without spelling it out.
AMAMA feels like a step forward for Crumb. It’s fearless, ushering listeners into a new era for the band, or as Crumb wrote in an Instagram post, “this universe of AMAMA.” It’s hard to imagine where they might go next, but it’s good for Crumb to revel in their victory. The band puts it best in AMAMA’s title track: “I like the way I’m feeling now.”