I, VIGILANTE

Mashing up psychedelic space rock with a Floydian bent (filtered through Porcupine Tree's Millennial experiments in crossing over indie rock and space rock) on the one hand and post- rock on the other hand should in principle be an interesting and fruitful experiment; however, Crippled Black Phoenix, on I, Vigilante, accomplish the crossover by playing it safe a little too often - the space rock side of their sound doesn't go off on too many trippy-ass expeditions to the edge of infinity, the post-rock side churns away at a low burble and feels neutered compared to the likes of Godspeed or Silver Mt. Zion. There's nothing here to startle or surprise the listener, and consequently the end result is tame and unsurprising aside from an end-of- album left turn into twisted bubblegum pop, which is too little too late.