Crate – Crushed to Nothing
Most bands save a big statement for the last song on a debut album. Crate close theirs by drifting backwards: “Crushed to Nothing” ends with a spoken-word outro that turns to hindsight, an old memory lodged like a small dark cut at the back of the skull, a fist clenched so tight the knuckles go white around whatever’s left.
Ezra Engler, who wrote it, says the song is about caring for someone in a bad place and slowly accepting that only they can pull themselves out. He’s been “the helper and the helpee” and calls it his most personal song. The verses keep that ambiguity: someone picked up off the floor, someone else being told what they want isn’t on offer.
The Brooklyn band’s guitar rock is hazy and in no hurry, fuzz pedals roaring underneath without crowding the song, closer to the noisier side of My Bloody Valentine with the patience of Duster. Cody, who splits songwriting with Engler, produced and mixed the album with TJ Freda of Gift and it came together at Shower Curtain’s Ethan Williams’ studio in Queens after being pieced together across Brooklyn apartments and practice spaces. Their self-titled debut is out November 13 on Good English Records, gathering “Julia”, “Necklace” and “Not My Song (Mine To Keep)”.
Three years from first single to first album is a long time. Hearing how this one ends, I’m fine with every month of it.
