Make no mistake, Crystals is a considerable sip of bongwater - eight songs clocking in at around 80 contact-high minutes - yet remarkably, the Philadelphia quintet actually see fit to allow their creations some long overdue breathing room, pruning back the distortion, accentuating the melody lines, and opting not to let every track accumulate volume and lope, mushrooming, into an all-out psychedelic war cul-de-sac.  Full text...

An album that alternates between tranquility and swirling maelstroms of sound.  Full text...

Ticket Crystals is the most diverse effort of Bardo Pond's 15-year existence, and not coincidentally, their finest.  Full text...

The band traverses the scope of seriousness and surreality as if it were the only thing worth looking at, the only thing worth listening to.  Full text...

Bardo Pond continues to incorporate more acoustic instrumentation but at the same time sounding as heavy as ever.  Full text...

This sixth album is strong on sludge-heavy melodic grind with acoustic sensibilities poking through, marrying the heavy and the light.  Full text...

It’s the same sound that they dove into more than a decade ago and apparently never want to leave.   Full text...

Ticket Crystals lacks the brutal guitar roar of the band's Lapsed, or the weirdly hypnotic embrace of its Amanita, but doesn't stray far enough to exclude the elements that made those records so great.  Full text...