Scrolling through Instagram, I came upon aesthetic painting videos and after watching several, I consistently heard a certain song in the background for most of them. So, I hunted through the comments and discovered that it was titled ‘Locket’ by a band named Crumb. After searching more about the band, I gave their newest album a listen and fell in love with their unique, dream-pop sound.

Crumb was formed in 2015 when the Brooklyn-based musicians, Lila Ramani (guitar, vocals), Brian Aronow (synth, keys, sax), Jesse Brotter (bass) and Jonathan Gilad (drums), came together to develop and record a collection of songs. After their hit song ‘Locket’ made its debut in 2017, they released a full album in 2019 titled ‘Jinx’ that has the best distillation of their blend of psych-rock and jazz.

After listening through the whole album, my personal favorite song is ‘Ghostride.’ Ramani’s breathy vocals incorporated with a luminous guitar loop and a continuous, simple strum behind it intensifies the ethereal feeling of the whole song. Throughout the album, concealed emotion, strained facades and a desire to break free from the normal are recurring themes

With the album on repeat, the romantic yet anxiety-ridden hypnotic state of their songs grow ever more prominent. “And It Never Ends,” strings out the feeling with lyrics like, “This city is dense / And it makes me tense / And it makes me tense / And it never ends / And it never ends.” Overall, it escalates the sense of foreboding in Ramani’s case.

Crumb has a knack for introducing a variety of sounds that can create an organized, chaotic melody. Which can honestly make listening to their tracks a bit difficult if it is something you have never heard before. Although their genre-bending sound can make listeners uninterested, it is the key element of what makes their uniqueness.