For those few that don’t know, ††† (Crosses) is an alt-electronic band featuring Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno, guitarist Shaun Lopez and Chuck Doom. The music has some similarities in terms of melody, to Chino’s Deftones outfit but with more of an electronic influence and a darker, brooding, edge. ††† (Crosses)’ music offers an escape – the melodic beats and haunting vocals contrast greatly with mainstream rock sounds, and present us with something ethereal, and oddly captivating.
††† (Crosses)’s self-titled debut album features the tracks from the band’s previous two EPs ‘EP †’ and ‘EP ††’ along with five new songs and does not fail to impress. The anticipation for the release of this album has only increased as the date has been pushed back on several occasions, but we’ll assure you that it’s worth the wait.
This epic full-length contains the new songs ‘Bi†ches Brew’, ‘†he Epilogue’, ‘Nine†een Nine†y Four’, ‘Blk S†allion’ and ‘Dea†h Bell’. As noticed from these song titles (and to some degree, the sound), the band holds connotations of witch-house style in the visual iconographic use of crosses throughout their entire discography. Performing as an interlude, ‘†his is a †rick’ builds up the ambience for the album. Its fast-paced style works alongside Chino’s soothing voice and his screaming of “this is a trick” makes it a song that you’ll find embedded in your head for the remainder of the day. This is followed by another previously released track, ‘†elepa†hy’ which is upbeat and helps to set the tone for the rest of the record. Weirdly enough, the track listing for the album follows the pattern of two previously released songs followed by a new one. In doing so, the first brand new song on the album is ‘Bi†ches Brew’; a captivating rendition of the events of the night by creating a basis of mental imagery of ghosts through its vampy vocals.
Meanwhile, ‘†he Epilogue’ is (actually) hauntingly beautiful, and the lyrics serve to conjure a range of images in the mind of the listener, “so we slip through the town with our heads in the clouds, in silence” and fits in well when followed by the chilled and seductive tones of ‘Bermuda Locke†’, a definite standout for us. While ‘Nine†een Nine†y Four’ is similar to ‘Nine†een Eigh†y Seven’ in name, they also complement each other in style. Both tracks are slow in pace with drawn-out vocals and yet they have characteristics which make them differ from each other. ‘Nine†een Nine†y Four’ consists of guitar licks unlike the wavering electronic sound of the latter song which ends with a blast of static.
Against the other songs, ‘Blk S†allion’ has more of a cool pop-rock vibe to it which makes it an unpredictably catchy offering. It has schizophrenic feel and darts in all directions, to its credit. Final offering, ‘Dea†h Bell’ is slow paced and concludes ††† (Crosses)’ debut with the dynamic repetitive tune of a piano mixed with electronic beats. Overall, it’s a stunning end to the album.
The band have clearly been searching for something since they came together in 2011 and we think that they’ve found it here – a dark, seductive beauty of a record with serious strength to build on in the future.
