A new record from Hot Cross. I was so giddy to get my hands on this promo. Unfortunately, the giddyness wore off while listening to it. There are some good tracks on this record but their new approach to melodic singing killed this record. "Pretty Picture of a Broken Face" is, without a doubt, the worst song ever recorded by this band. This song is the featured download on Level-Plane as well. Then when you think of why they are playing a show with Thursday soon, it all makes sense. "In Memory of Movern" was much better the first time around. Although it's not a bad record, it's not amazing like I thought it would be. Pick it up if you are a fan.
"It's the band that has the singer from Saetia in it", was the first thing I heard about Hot Cross. Later I also heard it contains ex-members of Neil Perry and Joshua Fit For Battle, but being a huge fan of Saetia I immediately was forced to check this new all star screamo band. The first thing I noticed was that Billy's vocals post Saetia have become less screechy and screamy. Perhaps all of that high screaming in his previous band took too much of a toll on his throat or maybe he just didn't like that style anymore, whatever the reasoning his scream is more straight forward. His lyrics have also changed, they are less about relationship problems and more of what appears to be about social commentary.
His lyrics have also changed, where they used to be more about relationship problems...
"empty hands on the ends of these reaching arms need the touch of something real
year by year we seperate further"
...they are now more about social commentary...
"forget the phony fuck that thinks with an ass instead of a head; its a game left for losers in a scene they've already fled"
Cryonics is a nice addition to the previous A New Set Of Lungs, although it definitely falls short of the two songs released on the split with Light The Fuse And Run. One of the songs from that split is rerecorded for this LP, "In Memory Of Morvern". If you compare the two recordings you'll hear how Hot Cross has begun to change their sound. The aforementioned sound has become less raw and more polished, which in many cases can be a good thing, but in this case, it is not. The vocals can not become polished no matter how much they make the music so, Billy's barking vocals worked much better over the previously created music.
Another major gripe I have is with the singing back ups, which are very evident in "Pretty Picture Of A Broken Face", which is also the song available for download on Level-Plane's website. The backups are very nasally and whiney and more fitting for a band like Taking Back Sunday. In no way am I saying that singing and screaming can't go together, but don't sing to have singing, have it because it compliments the rest of the music.
What saves this album is the last three tracks which contain songs that are actually interesting to listen to, unlike the first seven which are easy to skip through. "Frozen By Tragedy" is a nice instrumental that showcases one of the features that seperates Hot Cross from other bands being labeled as screamo, which is the psychadelic sounding guitar effects.
The only reason why Hot Cross is put in the genre as screamo is because of the bandmates' previous bands. Cryonics drives them further out of the screamo genre, it also drives them further away from being good. Props on trying to do something different and not repeat the same sound, but hopefully their next release will display their talent of being able to create music that is enjoyable to listen to.
