Hot Cross "Fair Trades and Farewells" CD
[Level-Plane]
It's been awhile since I last heard this band, and I liked what I heard, but this is definitely a bit stronger. Back then I called them "sreamo", for lack of a better term, and such influences still exist due to at times screamed vocals and lots of caustic textures and noisy arrangements. However, there's a shitload more melody here, as well as a dominant set of singing vocals (leaning towards a "sung yell" or something), and the riffing is way more fucking creative and forceful. The rocked out runs and layered panning in "Throw Collars to the Wind", for example, are non-fucking-stop with a lot of awesome energy. Some of the more restrained moments still remind me of Fugazi on a minor scale, but those such areas are few and far between. The vocal harmonies in "Consonants" are a bit more pronounced, as are some of the quirkier vocal patterns. It's cool that this band is really able to take that typical sort of hammer-on/pull-off riff and make it totally interesting and fresh when blended with rather complex changes and quick dissonant chords or fucked up picking patterns (see "Prepare/Repair", which is awesome after taking the time to digest it properly). The production is alright by me. A little rugged, but that matches the slightly loose playing aspects that pop up at times, and it's still pretty clear. You can hear all of the instruments just fine, nothing dominates, and I'm not complaining about the tones. I would like to hear louder and more defined bass, but everything else sounds really good, and the bass is fine as is. The layout uses lots of high contrast artwork printed in blue and silver with black and some white text, so it looks very consistent and fairly clean in appearance (despite some dirty textures and layered imagery stylistically). The lyrics have a constant sort of flow and suggest a larger meaning without getting too involved, and I really like that. "I preach to the converting with a tongue less disconcerting and a name pulled forth from ashes scattered when the fruits of our labor hardly mattered..." Good stuff. Far better and infinitely more promising than 95% of this stuff. "Throw Collars to the Wind" is such a killer song. (7/10)
Running time - 32:52, Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: Prepare/Repair, Throw Collars to the Wind]
Level-Plane Records - http://www.level-plane.com

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