Feral Harmonic

The Appleseed Cast’s Christopher Crisci has spent three and a half years assembling the follow-up to 2004’s Early Morning Hymns. Old Canes began as an impromptu side-project, so it took awhile before even the idea of a follow-up could be conceived. The final product, released in late 2009, is not a labored, heavily processed pop record, but true to Crisci’s original lo-fi spirit a muddy collection of tunes that often feature deliberately distorted instruments that don’t always sound as if they were originally intended to go together. “Trust” could be an acoustic ballad, but there’s a drum track pumping an alternate reality through it. “Sweet” uses harmonies that bleed into the keyboards. “The Last Collapse” begins with over-strummed acoustic guitar and thrives with a manic rumbling underneath its sweet melody. “I Will Be The Sun” takes a railroad clacking double-timed beat and runs with the chaos. Not everyone can take an acoustic guitar and dirty it up without losing the poetry. However, “Flower Faces” benefits from the extra grime as its pop melody still finds a way out from under.