Crossfade

"Crossfade"

FG Records/Columbia Records

Hailing from Columbia, South Carolina, Crossfade's debut and self-titled album is an overlapping of a heavy rhythm section with melodic vocals. If you enjoy music that often varies in pace and heaviness, then this is a terrific band for you. Crossfade's style is such that one second you'll be hearing a softly-strummed guitar part with a sweet vocal melody, and the next second that same guitar has heavy distortion and that same voice is rapping and yelling. This album is multi-layered and boasts a wide array of musical textures that offer something to fansof almost every music genre.

The first song, "Starless," smacks you in the face with hard and percussive guitars, only to calm into a soft, quiet stillness, and then return to the vigor with which it started. This pretty much sets the stage for the rest of the album. From punchy to pleasant, this album is similar to the styles of Nickelback and Puddle Of Mudd. However, this similarity does occasionally extend to a serious lack of originality. The vocal styles and clean guitar parts are very much like that of Nickelback, so much that on some songs it almost sounds indistinguishable. Despite this, most of the songs offer something a little unique with the addition of rapping and heavily overdriven guitars. This is most evident in "Death Trend Setta" which is mostly rapping and yelling over heavy breakdowns. This is definitely a harder, heavier sound than that of most bands falling in the Nickelback/Puddle Of Mudd genre. Through every melody, every guitar effect, there's still a strong and powerful sound. At the same time, the gritty, heavy parts of a Crossfade song never overpower the light and melodic, they compliment each other. Crossfade has done a great job of creating an ever-present balance on this record that adds tremendous depth to every song.

Though the musicianship on this record was something to be noted, the lyrics often were not. The music was deep and intricate, and the lyrics left much to be desired. With lines like "If only you could watch me fall, I cannot feel it anymore" and "Where's the love for me these days? I'm goin' off the deep end" I felt that I was listening to something that had been done to death already. Even the better lyrics had problems. For example, the line "But you should know, these colors that you're shining are surely not the best" is changed to "Surely not the best, colors that you shine" to fit the chorus. It's a good line with a moving visual, but in repetition as a chorus it loses it's meaning. It seems like the lyrics are just there to fill in the gaps, just to suit the music. I think that if lyricists in the band took a step back to just focus on lyrics, not making them fit the music, that they could have some really incredible results. This isn't to say that the vocals weren't good, they definitely were, I especially loved the harmony in the beginning of "So Far Away". With a small improvement upon the lyrics, the vocals on this album would have been absolutely amazing.

All in all this is a decent album. This isn't really my style of music, but it is good. It doesn't stand out against a lot of rock bands around, it isn't that innovative or different, but it is excellence in the style of music it adheres to and that's commendable. Even more commendable is the fact that this CD was recorded in the band's basement. I had to do a double take when I read this in the foldout because the sound quality and mixing is very professional. I highly recommend this album to fans of Nickelback or other bands in regular rotation on FNX or the like. This is truly a great rock release from a band poised at dominating the genre of music they play.

- Wyatt Shibley

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