Crumb Groove Their Worries Away on AMAMA
The beloved New York band’s third album features transient, lyrically minimal recollections over a collage of jazz, pop and psych-rock.

If AMAMA—the third studio album from New York band Crumb, produced by Johnscott Sanford and Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado—does one thing exceptionally well, it’s finding its groove from the moment you press play until “XXX” rings out. Opening track “From Outside A Window Sill” gears the listener up for what’s to come on the album, masterfully diverting your attention between Lila Ramani’s gorgeous vocals, the band experimenting with synth patches and just how well the drums are mixed. The song also samples a police radio scan about a flock of geese crossing a bridge in Ramani’s hometown of Gowanus, Brooklyn—which can be heard as an interlude between verses.
Unorthodox song structure is the name of the game on AMAMA, which allows Ramani to flex her storytelling chops. Her lyrics are sparse but still manage to fill the space of each song in good measure. “Side By Side” is a particularly confessional entry, as Ramani ruminates on her existential turmoil brought on by touring: “I change myself, degrade my health / For you, for you / So you can keep on doing well / We made this thing a mess / I drank away the stress,” she sings over a backbeat from percussionist Jonathan Gilad and bright synths from Bri Aronow.