Customer Reviews

Cripple Crow

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

There's plenty that has been said about Devendra's gifts -the praise being quite deserved- yet when it comes to Cripple Crow being some sort of step back in his musical development, I believe its critics are being a bit too harsh.

As far as I'm concerned, all comparisons aside, the material here belongs with and should meet the expectations of those who have been deeply impressed by his prior output. Banhart's mature musical vision is, specially considering how young he is and how adventurous he remains when it comes to writing new songs, nothing less than remarkable.

Before I ever heard this album, some people whom I know and respect warned me that I may find it boring or disappointing. Well, that has not been the case for me, you may find Cripple Crow less obscure, more accessible than prior albums but this is not to say that this guy has even come close to "selling out" or "losing his touch."
The fact that these songs may hit you immediately or have you under their spell at first listening, should not be a reason to criticize them. After all, "accessible" should not be an indictment on Banhart, and songs like "Now That I Know," "I Feel Just Like A Child," or "Hey Mama Wolf" definitely belong to the same imagination and mischief present in prior albums.

If you are looking for proof of breadth -something this album's critics said it lacked- just gather "Luna De Margarita," "Chinese Children," "Korean Dogwood" and "Little Boys," and you may recognize the kind of adventurous musical range that alternative Folk has not seen since the Incredible String Band.

In addition to those, I'd like to mention the few he sings in Spanish. If your definition of Folk transcends the Anglo tradition, you'll find delight on Banhart gift for Latin American melodies, particularly the beautiful "Santa Maria De Feira," as well as "Luna De Margarita" and "Quedate Luna."

All in all, this is an very good album, and for me, possibly as satisfying in its own right as "Niño Rojo" or Rejoicing In The Hands." If you have been floored by this guy creativity and disregard for the safety of prior successes, you may buy it without worries nor hesitation.

Some of you might already know this, but I didn't read any mention of it in the other reviews. There is a separate or "hidden" track that is about 8 minutes long called "White Reggae Troll/Africa". So, actually, this album has 23 tracks. I think this track's title further identifies the subtle Reggae influences, infused with folk, rock, alternative, bluegrass and other genres that amalgamate into the entirety of Cripple Crow.

Banhart is an excellent neo-folk talent whom I first heard on Antony and the Johnson's "I Am a Bird Now" album. The tracks are musically and lyrically diverse, performed in both Spanish and English, united by a calm, earthy undertone that is pleasant like Iron and Wine (though comfortably distinct). Though these tracks are largely mellow, it grooves with enough soul to keep the listener from falling asleep.

The music has an indigenous quality to it; I'm using that term a little loosely. It just makes me think of the music that the aboriginal musicians would be making today if most of them hadn't been killed off.

Cripple Crow will make a superb addition to your collection. The album offers a nice balance of longer songs interspersed with shorter ones, which comprise about 80 minutes worth of fun, contemplative and poetic tunes to keep your heart at peace.

I rate this album at 4.2 stars. It improves after several listens, like Nick Drake albums did for me.

Devendra Banhart is among the artists who were tagged as being part of the neo-folk revival that was all over the independent music press a few years ago. Thankfully, "freak folk" is much less of a buzz word right now, so anyone finding this music for the first time is most likely curious because they have a genuine interest, rather than because of some external pressure.

That having been said, Cripple Crow is a great album by a great artist and I would strongly recommend it to anyone new to Devendra Banhart. There's more emphasis on fun, catchy tunes and an easy-going hippie aesthetic here than on some of his earlier albums (tropicalia is a big influence) - more variety, too. In some ways, that detracts from the music's ability to draw the listener in, but it also makes Cripple Crow a joy to hear over and over again. In fact, I've enjoyed this album more and more on successive listens, a phenomenon that I don't often experience.

And the songs are really wonderful - I tend to listen to Cripple Crow for individual songs rather than as a cohesive whole. "Now that I Know", "Santa Maria de la Feira", "Heard Somebody Say", "Quedate Luna", "I Feel Just like A Child", "Dragonflies", "Cripple Crow", "Hey Mama Wolf", "Little Boys", and "Anchor" are all highlights. Buy it, try it, give it a chance.

I recently bought a slew of new albums, this being one of about five. And among that rainfall of music, this one stands out as the clear winner. Devendra first piqued my curiosity with Nino Rojo-and while I love that record, it was definitely a mood piece-something to put on in the middle of a very quiet night alone. I didn't want anyone else to hear it. Cripple Crow is like the lovely Sunday morning after that long dark winter night. The first comparison that comes up is something along the lines of George Harrison's great sprawling post-Beatles work. But I never felt like I could claim that music as my own in the way I can with Devendra.

Now lest you think I'm some hirsute hippy making daisy chains and soaking in patchouli, I am a huge Melvins fan and vehement post-hippy (I can't really call myself anti- as I went to school in Santa Cruz and I have some hippies in my family). Devendra goes above and beyond any labels as quaint as "freak folk" or "hippy". He's just making great music.

The sound of Cripple Crow is open and warm. It's like being invited to a big late summer feast at Devendra's house. It goes well with wine. It sounds like September. It needs to be played over and over again (I'm trying not to wear it out). And his Spanish-sung tunes are just fantastic: a little bit of Caetano, a little Gilberto Gil, with that same childlike warbly Devendra voice.

Buy it now!!!

I was first introduced to Devendra on a terrific show found on the NPR website called "All Songs Considered," and I rushed out and bought "Rejoicing." Recently, a neopsychedelic show called the Kaleidoscope Cafe on the website Radio Free Phoenix featured the track "Heard Somebody Say," and it gave me the chills. It is the best of the handful of Iraq War songs and deserves to be alongside the great protest songs of John Lennon. I purchased the album based on that song alone and I was not disappointed. It doesn't have the gritty street performer sound of his previous releases, which is a good thing. You will hear tremendous growth and a great sense of things to come from this amazing artist.

Every once in a while, a record creeps up on me. This one, I bought a couple of years ago, listened to it once or twice, and thought "meh...what's all the hype about?".

Fast forward a couple of years, and I'm rifling through my endlessly disorganized piles of CDs, looking for something else, and I come across "Cripple Crow" in one of the stacks. I think to myself "...wait, I don't remember buying that; but I guess I did...I do remember it got all kinds of critical praise...".

I didn't find the CD I was actually looking for (big surprise!), but I took "Cripple Crow" with me in the car, and as I listened to it in its entirety, I was blown away.

Some people complain about Banhart's vocal stylings. While there are other influences, Marc Bolan's influence comes through strongest, at least on "Cripple Crow".

Mr. Banhart's first name is Hindi influenced. For those familiar with Hinduism, one of its main tenets is karma and reincarnation. Seems to me Marc Bolan's karma was good enough for him to be reincarnated into the body of Devendra Banhart.

He's been labeled everything from "freak folk" to "neo folk", to "neo hippie" and a bunch of other things. Label Mr. Banhart's music anyway you want, but it has a mystical, playful feel about it, and it's great stuff.

Cripple Crow comes as quite a shock to those of us who were fans of Devendra Banhart's first couple of albums for Michael Gira's Young God Records. His early style was stark and strangely old-timey, like they were recently unearthed gems from the early 20th century. Conversely, this new album is warm and organic, and steeped in a large assortment of different sounds and styles, including various kinds of folk, both American and that of his native Venezuela, several decades of rock, stripped-down blues, and more. Compared to his early albums, Cripple Crow is like that moment in The Wizard of Oz where the screen explodes into color.

Folk music is the bedrock on which the album sits, and some of Banhart's finest folk compositions are here. The Spanish language pieces, like "Santa Maria de Feira" and "Quedateluna" are highlights, but equally gripping are English tracks like the melancholy singalong "Heard Somebody Say", and the more contemporary-sounding "Koreandogwood". Even the rockier songs on the album share the spare production and feel of the folk numbers. "Long Haired Child", with its blistering guitar fills and stomping beat, would have been produced as a storming heavy metal tune on anyone else's album, but Devendra Banhart allows the performance to up the energy level without hiding behind distortion. The same goes for the bopping beat on "Little Boys" and the gently sawing strings of "I Love That Man". Every style covered on the record gets filtered through the same folky, spare vibe, and the overall feel is of having a dream about being at a particularly energetic folk show. Presumably somewhere in South America. At 23 songs the album is long, but it never drags. Banhart is able to find infinite variation in his sound, and he makes each song feel like a necessary step in the journey.

I don't know what the Spanish songs are about, but as far as the English tracks go, there are a number of war protest pieces, which is admirable, but there's also an odd number of tracks about Banhart's fascination with little boys, which is a little troubling. Still, other alleged pedophiles have had very nice careers in pop music, so I won't make an issue of it. For now, it's enough to say that Cripple Crow is a very nice album tightly packed with a lot of really good songs, and you'd be well advised to give it a listen.

More than enough has been said about Devendra's unique musical talents and style. His voice and the world it draws you into is nothing short of a swirling fever dream, a place that is almost perfectly encapsulated by the Sgt. Pepperesque album art. Devendra's songs will enlighten, charm, enliven, and in some instances frighten.

Just as a warning, unless you are capable of allowing music to inhabit its own world and live by its own rules, you will find it difficult to fully let go and enjoy someone like Devendra Banhart. One example, the song "Little Boys", simply cannot be taken in literal terms without being borderline disgusting.

"I see so many little boys I want to marry...I see plenty little kids I want to have...in the shower I get my dreaming done."

As for me...I can appreciate that a song is a song...or if coming from Devendra, it's a trip.

Trip on Devendra.

Trip on.

I bought Banhart's first album when it came out and was a little turned off (honestly it's grown on me and I really like it now) but at the time it really turned me off. I found his two following albums easier to digest and very enjoyable but Cripple Crow is his strongest and most accessible album yet. The album is mellow and enjoyable and beyond that it is a sign of things to come. This album makes it clear that Devendra Banhart is the future of folk music and the future's so bright I gotta were shades (do you like that Timbuk 3 reference? You gotta say this review helped you just for that).

Well, Devendra is certainly growing year by year, this fifth album seems at the first listening a much more mature work with a soft and relaxed happiness, showing a huge group spirit: laughs, people talking in the back, noises, handclaps, organic sounds and a lot of instruments, including the electric ones ("Little Boys" is a fine example, with that...weird lyrics, almost surfing at the guitar!!).
His spanish is delightful (in fact, at the start of the second song, "Santa Maria da Feira", he talks a little of portuguese...Santa Maria da Feira is the name of a portuguese small town with a medieval castle!) and I get a comparison with some of the atmosphere of Incredible String Band (not only for the cover, too "Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" or, if you wish, too "Sgt. Pepper's"), also the acoustic-getting-electric side of Bob Dylan (for instance, the song "I Feel Just Like a Child" hung up with a Dylan-esque flavour) or the "Gift From a Flower to a Garden", the lovely double album from Donovan... but gone is Nick Drake!!! There is no sadness or the melancholic prostration of the author of "Five Leaves Left", the album lives of kindred spirits, almost a fairy-like ambiance, sensuous percussion and sunset guitars... It is fluid, the songs are memorable ("Inanel", gentle-spooky nightfall lullaby, a must in the folk music!) and not weird (maybe his voice, only sometimes) this is not that weird folk music or else, well, like the spendid "sung Tongs" of Animal Collective... This is a much more kind-of-a-porcelain fragile music made by a man-child and a lot of in-the-same-spirit guests with a natural innocence, people who like to walk in the woods or stay the night at home, by the fire; people that are so far away from the city sickness...with, perhaps, a cure for life...