Casual Smart return from Cardiff’s spirited DIY music scene with a third single, nurturing the authentic delicacy from earlier releases and showing off some new orchestral flair.
The band’s latest release, ‘Cranes’, feels like their most emotionally potent yet. A soulful sax, shifting tempos and vocals that linger between spoken word and song demonstrate a raw experimentation. The track is a playful piece, encapsulating the band’s ability to express emotion with growing precision while expanding the boundaries of their sound. It’s a product of their youth, their love and the places that surround them.
There is an immediate tenderness in the fragile instrumentation of ‘Cranes’ as a repetitive piano arrangement oscillates up and down, resonating internally, flowing within you like a breath that rises and falls with your own. The piano is soon joined by a marching drumbeat and a saxophone that warbles an introduction to Peter Martin’s vocals, which stumble into the track with a Black Country, New Road theatricality. Containing tonal shifts and a certain flatness, the vocals seem to drift outside the rest of the song rather than blending with the other instruments, almost like a radio being played in another room, perhaps intentionally disturbing the serenity of the piano.
‘Cranes’ is a love song, or more accurately, a song that tries to define what love does. Its lyrics position it as something that is both foundational and risky, something that can rebuild and invigorate. Casual Smart liken its impact to towering cranes while also comparing it to the more chaotic experiences of “mosh pits” and “drugs”. The line, “I take you over mosh pits, I take you over drugs” does more than elevate love above these experiences, it becomes them.
The song’s finale crashes in with a fusion of instruments that express the intensity and emotion the lyrics suggest. A nifty guitar lick replaces the so far persistent piano riff, the saxophone wails, steadily gaining tempo before losing control in the current that drags it into a crescendo where the drums crash discordantly and the piano chords ring out of tune. The outro of the track slips into disorder, wading deep into unconventional form without, completely, losing its grip on structure.
This controlled chaos doesn’t just define the climax of ‘Cranes’, it is a bold example of where Casual Smart might go next. Cut from the same cloth as their art-rock predecessors but sewn with their own stitches, Casual Smart offer a youthful and raw outlook on love, set against the urban lit backdrop of Cardiff’s nighttime cityscape. Their message: choose love not for romantic fantasy but for industrial reinvigoration.
Photo by Tobias Lagos
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Issue Fifty-Five features Model/Actriz, YHWH Nailgun, The Orchestra (For Now), Westside Cowboy, Car Seat Headrest, Real Farmer, School Fair, Elias Rønnenfelt, feeble little horse, Kissing On Camera, Pooneh Ghana and Rhi Dancey.Read the digital edition below.