“Are you ready for the Queen of the Crescent Moon? Are you ready for the Queen?”
So sing Queen Crescent on “In the Court of the Crimson Queen,” an awful inviting way for the Oakland-based band to open their self-titled debut – especially considering that said album’s stunning, stomping, majestically striding thirty-four minutes culminate in a different, somewhat more impolite (but completely familiar) sentiment, by way of the song “I Wish A Muthafucka Would.” Clearly, this Queen is mercurial and judging by her sound, she is massive – she contains multitudes.
From “In the Court of the Crescent Queen” through “I Wish A Muthafucka Would,” Queen Crescent employ a million manners of royally wrecked rock references, not all crimson in color, but all delivered sharply enough to draw blood.
For despite the lunar glow of the album’s cover (and despite this album being undeniably, unquestionably and un-self-consciously flute rock to its core), the Queen’s yellow in this case it not so mellow – in fact, we’re trying to say, it’s fucking awesome. There’s a bit of blue, some of that space-conquering black – even a splash of what we identify as black-magick green.
Whatever the colors you identify as shining from the Queen Crescent throne, what’s clear to our ears is that the colors are all naturally occurring. That is to say, this is a band that sounds completely in-synch with their sound; their wah-wah pedal operates with the grace and heavy simplicity of a human heart, involuntary, life-giving and natural.
It’s a sound self-described by the band of being “born of the psychedelic womb” – and here’s to their thousand-year reign of sonic aristocracy.
Boogie and blood and moons and machines and flutes and freakery and gallop and GOD! Are you ready for the Queen of the Crescent Moon?
We were born ready. Highest possible recommendation.
Queen Crescent’s self-titled debut album is available here.
“Leaving, where to go? Staying, where?
Which to choose? I stand aloof.
To whom speak my parting words? The galaxy,
White, immense, A crescent moon.”
– Shoten, 11th Century
(from “Zen Poems of China and Japan“)
Revolt of the Apes 
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