Album Review: Crisis Arm- Fetch EP

Hot on the heels of September’s full length release Caterwaul, as well as the incredibly trill “Ghost Cat” shirts they were selling via their Facebook fan page, California’s Crisis Arm have returned with a rather short, extra heavy and dreamy EP, Fetch.

Fetch is eight tracks long, though it’s split between four “real” songs, and four instrumental segue pieces. Of the “real” songs, you could say they pick up where Caterwaul left off, although there seems to be an additional layer of warmth, found especially on “Every Time,” and “Defect.”

The tracks on Fetch also feel extra swirly, and like the ‘gaze factor in Crisis Arm’s shoegaze sound has been cranked up. The vocals are appropriately buried in the mix, and the band finds a cohesive sound—the songs are exponentially more focused and controlled, and more emphasis has been put on the hypnotic, delayed and reverby higher guitar tones that soar above crunchier, lower-end fuzz.

Of the segue tracks, which do break things up nicely, they are mostly what you would expect from minute-long pieces—brief experiments in feedback and droning. However, on “Wake,” the band channels a little bit of the space-rock outfit Failure—the warbled, dreamily plucked guitar string progression is slightly reminiscent of the now infamous segues on Failure’s Magnified and Fantastic Planet.

Fetch serves not so much as a “companion” piece to Caterwaul, but more like an extension, showing the ever-continuing growth of a young, imaginative, and promising new band.

Fetch is available now to download from the band, with cassette copies coming soon via Perpetual Bullshit.