Review: Craft Spells – Nausea

With a record label that fosters the likes of Wild Nothing and Beach Fossils, it’s expectable that most Craft Spells compositions will be aimed toward the average pop-loving introvert. However, their newly metamorphosed sound on Nausea has enough muscle behind it to flex out the navel-gazer in any listener. In contrast with previous albums, Nausea makes a solid break from the band’s over-extensive use of early ‘80s synth pop structures and replaces them with simplistic and jangly guitar rhythms canvassing around a lackadaisical tempo. The album’s single, “Breaking the Angle Against the Tide” is so adept at using rolling and warm rock resonations that it could easily go toe to toe with any of Real Estate’s contemporary canon. Whereas past albums brought Craft Spells recognition of their potential, Nausea exhibits that they had the wits to not let it go to waste. –Gregory Gerulat