Hot Cross – Risk Revival

I’m not sure if this is what Ray Cappo envisioned when he started up the label, but there’s a few bands on there that I adore (namely Bane and Good Clean Fun), but I guess you can add another band to that list now. At first, like usual, I was fairly apprehensive about listening and trying to get into this album, which is probably attributed to the fact that I listened to the second song first and heard weird riffing that I first experienced when I got The Fall of Troy CD. I guess I automatically assumed that they’d be a lot like The Fall of Troy and I really didn’t like their s/t (to be fair, it’s their only CD I’ve heard). I finally decided I’d give this album a try though and I must admit, that it’s very good. Where I was expecting annoying vocals striving for melody followed with a harsh scream, I’m only experiencing one consistent voice (with added back-ups by other band members and/or friends). Not to mention, the guitar riffs I was expecting to be random and hard to follow for more than a song or two turned out to be well structured and appealing. Following the trend set by many a post-hardcore band; the guitar riffs are extremely complex and ever changing. The bass and the drums definitely don’t seem to drive the band as much as the guitar and the vocals and seem to just be background noise in comparison. I really don’t have any complaints about this album, it’s not really my thing, but I’m almost positive it’ll grow on me in the next few months.

I’d really suggest giving this band a chance, for someone who had hardly any expectations I suppose you could say that I was thoroughly impressed. The songs even all sounded different, I can’t remember the last time I was able to state that without having to double check. I’ve been missing out; hopefully this will get some heavy play in my CD player in the next little while.