Love You More by the Crystal Teardrop: Album Review
Love You More by the Crystal Teardrop: Album Review
I discovered The Crystal Teardrop in September 2023 after they released their second single, “By the River.” While they were clearly young folks with an unpolished sound, you could hear it: these kids are onto something. I began following their career immediately, awaiting THE album—the one that would place them among the great modern interpreters of Sixties music, like Shannon and the Clams or The Lemon Twigs.
Psychedelia, garage rock, sunshine pop and other ’60s-originated genres all live today within the “indie” music ecosystem and are very much rooted in nostalgia and retro aesthetics—perhaps even more so than other surviving genres tied to specific decades such as modern takes on disco or grunge. While this is inherent to these genres, balancing freshness with authentic Sixties-coding is a tightrope walk of doom, with most bands understandably falling to one side or the other. From their first three singles it was clear that The Crystal Teardrop made this balancing act look easy.
In the last three years, they’ve come a long way. Their debut album, …Is Forming, came out last year and was rather good. They took what felt like a very interesting detour of sorts by fusing MC5-like proto-punk influences with their already established late-sixties California psychedelic rock sound. However, with the release of Love You More, the punkier side gone is and the band goes all-in on jangle pop and sitar-laden psychedelia.
Leon Jones’ electric sitar is the standout sound on the record with nearly every appearance being memorable and attention-grabbing. Stuart Gray’s organ work is perfectly suited to a sixties enthusiast’s taste with Booker T. Jones-like playing scattered across the album. The band runs vintage organs (including a Hammond) through classic rotary speakers, creating a beautiful retro swirling sound that accents the other instrumentation perfectly. I do wish the organ was featured more prominently throughout the record because when it’s around, it steals the show. The band has stated that they explicitly tracked down authentic 1960s artifacts to record the album live-to-tape. This alone contributes significantly to the switch from the aforementioned proto-punk sound to a distinctly jangly, often psychedelic, sixties folk fingerprint.
Jacob Swetmore
The singles for this album were absolutely the correct choices to release as samplings. “It’s Too Late,” released in April, is a catchy garage rock track worth a listen. However, “Tomorrow Starts Today,” released as the first official single from the album, is the song that really piqued my excitement for the new record. The first three seconds of the song caught my attention to such a degree you’d have thought they spoke my name. It’s a fantastic raga rock-infused jangle pop type of song with George Harrison-esque sitar and Alexandra Rose’s continued vocal growth on display prominently. This sound is where I think the band outfoxes their contemporaries by a respectable margin.
Then there is “Touch the Sun,” released as the third single. The song is an epic 7-minute psychedelic odyssey that also functions as the closing track of the album. I would not be surprised to see every critic in the psychedelic music scene talking about this bafflingly gorgeous track for years to come. I fight not to speak in absolutes, but to my ears at least, a more perfect closing track for an album of this style, I could not ask for. From the sitar work, Anatolian rhythms, and beautiful vocal performance to the musings on the meaning of life and the looping vocal sample at the end, this song is an accomplishment of lysergic proportions. “Touch The Sun” is to this album what “The End” was to The Doors’ debut album—the perfect finish.
One thing I find fascinating is that alongside the ever-present echoes of 1960s psychedelia and the 1980s Paisley Underground scene, I hear a little of the more sixties-influenced bands of the 1990s. Specifically, while listening to “Times Are Gone” and “Outside Looking In,” I couldn’t help but think of harmonious, jangle-pop bands like The Rembrandts and Gin Blossoms. There is a reasonable chance that these bands are not influences, but it’s a sound not usually explored in modern music, so that too was a breath of fresh air.
Jacob Swetmore
Love You More, which drops on October 2nd, is a “must hear” for not only modern psychedelic fans but also the older Boomers who grew up during the first psychedelic era and even the younger generations who discovered sixties-influenced music through their own era’s artists. This isn’t the greatest album from this lane that I’ve ever heard, but it is an album that walks the tightrope more gracefully than hundreds before it. I cannot wait to hear what The Crystal Teardrop forms next.
Johnny Damron is an Ohio-based music writer and founder of Sauna Sounds, an independent outlet focused on music history, culture, and analysis. His work explores psychedelia, classic rock, and the cultural stories that surround music.
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