Nothing Is Real is Crystal Antlers going beyond the beyond, with songs that rattle and ricochet from desolation to delirium. Opener "Pray" sounds like what would have happened if Black Flag's Greg Ginn had produced the first Psychedelic Furs single; "Persephone" and "Anywhere But Here" match the desperate, relentless rhythm of the Wipers with the inside-out guitar melodies of the Pixies. "Li- corice Pizza" recalls lost cult-punk heroes like the Flesh Eaters or the Embarrassment. On Nothing Is Real, you'll feel as much as hear echoes of bands like Wire, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. As Bell puts it, "With each album, we've tried to figure out ways to include more of our whole selves in the recordings, while still keeping things cohesive. And from growing up in punk bands, there always needs to be that little element of something that might piss someone off. We might be using a drum machine_but we're gonna use it completely the wrong way."