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This album actually has quite a bit going for it. The musicianship is very
good. The two guitars and bass coalesce with the drums in a way that it all
becomes one sound at times. The vocals are strong, on key, and at times taut
with the anticipation of the lyrics around the bend. The production is
workmanlike. Simplistic. Meat and potatoes almost. No filler. Just some
violin and cello added by a friend.
What turned me off after listening to Temporary Contemporary was how
self-conscious it all seemed. You see, about six months ago there was this
type of music popular with these bendy, droney guitars, sparse arrangements,
two-handed hi-hat “trills” (Soundgarden’s Outshined single uses them to good
effect going into the chorus), lotsa quiet bits that usually became very
loud when you least expected it, and wimped-out, whiney vocals by whoever
got elected “lead complainer” at rehearsal, with a Vulcan Death Grip on his
microphone, and doing these ‘I’m ready for my close-up’ poses while he sang
about how miserable and depressed he was. The audience (referred to
sometimes as “Spock’s” cuz the guys usually all shared Leonard Nimoy’s hair)
would jam out and rock back and forth at the shows. Usually while still
wearing their backpacks. They almost took more stock in assembled misery and
sorrow than Goths, or even homeless people do--the latter crowd actually
having a bit of reasoning for being bummed out.
The type of music I refer to was called “Emo” (short for ‘emotional’, I
guess), and had the typical “scene” shelf life
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of about nineteen months.
Cross My Heart might be the most Emo Emo band I have ever heard. Temporary Contemporary (it was temporary, alright) seems so forced it could have been
almost any type of music, depending on what was “in” at the little sweatbox
clubs they frequented when starting this band up. A minor nod to a
“ground-breaking” (some say) band too, which makes Cross My Heart only the
eighty-eight millionth outfit to swing from Slint’s nut-sacks in the last
year and a half. I wonder if CMH will sound anything like Kovenant next
year? Or Massive Attack? Or Smash Mouth? Or ICP? Or maybe they’ll become
straight-edge-diet-punk (their moniker will become synonymous with the
ladies bra’s of the same name, and they’ll write songs about how ‘sexism is
bad’... With song titles like (I swear I’m not making this up) Tonight We’ll
Light Ourselves on Fire, The Great Depression, and the diddy to warm the
cockles of your grandma’s little heart, Self-Loathing Bastard. Yeah, buy her
a copy of this cd for her walkman, and if she listens to it all in one
sitting it’ll almost catapult her into the cemetery.
By Jason Thornberry, CanEHdian.com. Cpoyright 2001
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