Cymbals Eat Guitars - "Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name)"

At just over eight and a half minutes, "Rifle Eyesight" is the longest song released as of yet by the Staten Island indie-rock outfit. It begins with a 90 second intro that carelessly bounds from fast to slow with no real explanation for any of it's spasms. This isn't the first time Cymbals Eat Guitars has sounded so aggressive, but the staggering randomness along with Joe D'Agostino's otherwise pitchy vocals is almost grating to listen to. I understand what they're doing here: Like in their phenomenal 2009 debut, Cymbals takes what would otherwise be discarded Pavement guitar riffs and juices it up with some steroids. Here, however, it comes across as a contrived mess that has no attention span.

The song does get a second wind though: powered by it's descending feedback jam (which calls back to the likes of the monumental opener found in "...And the Hazy Sea"), "Rifle Eyesight" returns with a deranged guitar riff that soon blossoms into another Modest Mouse-esque, feedback riddled frenzy that improves upon the intro riff. There's no callback offered to what had just happened (I'm not complaining) but the succint affair quickly fizzles down into the song's distressed outro.

The "coming out of a breakdown with a triumphant crescendo" gag is starting to get old here folks, but the good news is that the outro finally breathes life into an otherwise lengthy disappointment. By being held down by a lethargically pulsing bass drum and piano line, the song finally gets a sense of direction as D'Agostino softly sings over an array of beckoning strings and arbitrary guitar licks. Yes, yet another climax occurs after the brief (and appreciated) rest period, but the key difference here is that this short-lived emotional release is about the only climax that means something.

What's to be noted here is that, after only three short paragraphs, I was already starting to run out of synonyms for the world "brief". The whole jumping from movement to movement concept is starting to certify itself as an overused cliche, and the band's once unrepressed nostalgia now sounds like the tormented baby of Pavement and Tera Melos. Ultimately, "Rifle Eyesight" is far too lengthy and a bit disappointing, which is a shame really, because with a bit of rarranging here and there this band can do wonders.

2.5/5

You can listen to "Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name)" here