Reviews: Crosstide - Seventeen Nautical Miles
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Embrace (http://www.embracezine.tk)
Crosstide maybe neither newest nor essential fixtures on the current musical trend, but what most impresses is their ambition, and unafraid to let the listeners to get inside their subteranean world without being distracted by their laboured melodrama songs. Fronted by the extraordinary singer who has luscious velvet voice, they just plug in through sprawling emotional rock epics like "High Wire", "Black Eyes", and "Dissolve". But my most favorite song on this CD (which consist songs from their first EP, and a few extra tracks) is the last one called "Yesterdays", a simple yet nicely acoustical brooding with Bret Vogel just lowering his voice and spit it out like he was half steps back from the mic, or rather sapped of all hopes, as if the lines from the song was the biggest confesion of his life. As he repeats the lines, the emphasis hasn't changed instead sounding more desperate. No hopes, no tomorrow, just him revelling in one of the most desperate, depressing song ever, or maybe just happy to have it coursing through him, bellowing tunefully. This CD is haunting, but I'd have expected more from their debut which will be out this September. Can't wait.
Emma Johnston at Kerrang
Are you wondering why the great British summer has seen floods of a biblical nature? Well, its nothing to do with global warming. Nope, all the excess water is coming straight from the thousands of sensitive young men in emo bands that are popping up like mushrooms in damp weather. Happily (or should that be unhappily), Crosstide prod you in the tear ducts in all the right ways. Frontman Brett Vogel has an effortlessly beautiful voice that soars over some subtly crunching guitars, and he's above the stifling, navel-gazing lyrical introspection we"ve come to expect, as the really quite wonderful, weirdly uplifting and complex "Dissolve" superbly proves. Crosstide write near perfect songs. What more reason do you need to give them a chance?
Suspect Device (#39)
I was well chuffed when I got sent this as I was danged impressed with them on the split they did with One Last Thing that I reviewed last time. This is great indie rock/emo stuff, ala Inside. Proper singing by a really good vocalist over songs that start mellow and quiet with plucked guitars and then build into right rocking juggernauts, and then back again. Very personal lyrics of love lost and despair finish it off very nicely indeed. Ooh it's Nice.
Inside Knowledge (#5)
I never will be a fan of this band. But this CD is worth listening to. Very slow emotional pop music with clean guitars in the range of Radiohead with other slow rock bands. When I heard them on their split with One Last Thing, I was very enthusiastic. Now I hear their full length and I sure think a lot of you guys/girls will like it. But this is a bit too slow for me.
Fracture (#22)
It's over a minute and half before the vocals kick in on this laid back long player. CROSSTIDE make no excuses for being emotionally strung, despairing, romantic, guitar gazers. it would be hard to pretend they weren't emo let's just say. Far more determined and meaty than their contribution to the split with OLT, the ten tracks still hold traces of ELLIOT but that can't be all bad. It soars, it glides! There are some great moments on guitar but the vocals and lyrics are still open hearted and dramatic for my tastes.
