Hot Cross - Risk Revival

LABEL:

Hope Division

GENRE:

Post-Hardcore

RELEASE:

February 20, 2007

LENGTH:

43 min 48 sec

RATING:

Admittedly, I am not a devoted fan of Hot Cross. I have listened to previous efforts like Cryonics and blasphemous as it may seem to many in the hardcore underground, I wasn't really impressed. That's not to say that their music was particularly bad, but it kind of just blended together into just another incoherent hardcore sound. I'm sure it was quite an acquired taste, and maybe the poor production on their older albums threw me off too much, I'm not sure. Let's put it this way: while I didn't dislike them, I probably wouldn't have paid real money to see them live.

Now if any of that makes sense, then the exact opposite is how I feel about Risk Revival. The first thing you notice about this album is the production, which is far superior than anything Hot Cross has released before. Better yet, the vocals on this album actually sound good, as opposed to the rest of their catalogue, which suffers from today's ever-so-popular strep throat style. For the first time, you can listen to this band without it sounding like a sick person screaming in your ear. Unfortunately, they broke up soon after releasing this album, which figures because they were really starting to develop an excellent sound. I secretly theorize that the cause was that many fans of gritty-or-die hardcore complained that Hot Cross "sold out" by realizing that it's not a good thing to sound like shit. In reality, they probably just got tired, which happens a lot.

As far as this particular album goes, it's pretty solid, starting off with "Exits and Trails," which boasts astonishingly quick and ferocious guitar work, which turns out the be a mainstay for the entire forty-plus minutes. The short interlude "Resent Resist Rebuild," builds up to the thunderous opening riffs of "Fire the Foundations," a powerful stop-and-go tune. "Rejoinder," one of the strongest tacks, is followed by a bizarre, acoustic change of pace that begins "Finance Fuels The Sickness at Heart," only to be overtaken by the band's classic sound after only 24 seconds. The closer, "Scrape Wisdom," is the album's longest track, clocking in at one second short of five minutes, and creates a proper ending without overstaying its welcome.

While the shortcomings of this release are few in number, their impact is enough to lower its rating. The music is impressive, yet static at times, and the vocals lack variation and often seem like they are stuck between singing and yelling, without knowing which way to go. Despite its flaws, and while I would have been looking forward to even greater things from this band, Risk Revival is an appropriate way for Hot Cross to go out: fast, hard and loud.