Band: Crossfaith (Japan, vocals in English)
Genre: metalcore (electronic influenced), nu-metal
Sounds A Lot Like: Slipknot (like, one song IS a Slipknot song I think), Ill Nino but with keyboards, probably some core bands I don't know about ... uh, The Devil Wears Prada? I dunno.
Relisten?: Gotta Be in the Mood
You'll Like If ... you're into simplistic but effective crunch
You'll Hate If ... you abhor emoey shit, video game sprites and/or Slipknot songs being kidnapped and reverse engineered.
Can You Have Sex To It?: Aggressive missionary quickie?
***
I grew up in the nu-metal era. With the exception of Metallica being a constant presence, I pretty much got into metal because of bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Deftones, Sevendust, POD, etc. Yeah, I know. What a way to start! And while most of those bands have NOT aged well, you gotta respect where you come from, ya know?
But I was recently thinking about WHY nu-metal was so popular. There was this devolution of thought that went into metal's biggest genres from the early 80s to the mid-2000s. You had glam (a superficial, bullshit genre focusing on fucking) and thrash fighting each other with thrash boasting lightning fast tempos while also discussing the world at war, politics and the horror of man. When grunge came along and embraced personal anguish and pain on a one-on-one level, I can get humans, being the depressed fucking people we are, embracing it and letting the higher concepts go.
But nu-metal, which supplanted grunge on the heavier-music scene, seemed to take the anguish part of grunge and squeezed all the emotion out of it. All you had now was id. And, you know what, it makes sense why I dug it. I was a teenager who went to an all-boy's high school and was petrified of girls.
We had an all-girl sister school next door but you had to have balls of steel to go over there, surrounded by estrogen, and talk to girls. So: add growing hormones, a strange mustache, nervousness, the standard rebellion mode you go into as a teen plus the reality of a sexless world and I'd want to SKIN YOUR ASS WITH A CHAINSAW BRAH!!!!!
So now you know I didn't get laid in high school.
But yeah, nu-metal kind of understood the aggressive teenage mind. The problem: the singers and musicians of the bands were, like, in their late 20s and 30s. The fuck are they so ANGRY about?
Which is why I struggle with ANGER music in the metal scene that is ANGRY for the sake of ANGER, and RAGE music that has RAGE for the sake of ARRGGGH and OOOOF, how much do you lift?
In some senses, and I hope Japan's Crossfaith forgives me for crucifying them here, you get a record like Xeno and you have flashbacks to the high school days and tap your foot to the AGGRESSION. Along with the shift from high concept ideas, nu-metal was not known for its technicality. Bands like Korn might throw in some weird sound effects with a trillion guitar pedals but with the exception of messing with vocals and adding DJs, the rhythm sections were pretty basic: heavy crunch, heavy crunch, heavy crunch on repeat with hip hop beats, melodic and almost ironically poppy choruses and loooooots of cursing.
Crossfaith doesn't break new ground or even play for nostalgia: it is all very serious in that it is mostly men in their late 20s to early 40s screaming with anger with heavy crunch after heavy crunch accompanying the rage. In Crossfaith's case, as is the case with many Japanese metal groups, they just add insane video game like keyboards to it.
Crossfaith seems like a fine band at doing what they do. Like I said, I get the occasional foot tap from them or the random surge of adrenaline from the unmitigated aggression of it all. But Xeno, full disclosure: the only album of theirs I have listened to in full, is memorable for the sounds it reminds me of while remaining completely forgettable in terms of its content. I can't remember one chorus or one particular riff section that made me go, "yeah, these guys are a cut above". It is more the IDEA of Crossfaith that intrigues me then any of the actual content they produce.
The song "Devil's Party" is probably the best cut off the album as it reaches pure nu-metal zenith with mind-boggling screams mixed with a super catchy, pseudo-emo chorus. I couldn't tell you what the song is about at all but I can confirm that the lead singer REALLY needs to know everything is fine.
There are some guest artists on the album but I'm not familiar enough with Skindred or Beartooth to comment if they add something special to the record. There are also some attempts to change the tone ever so slightly with a love ballad here and an electro-instrumental there. Overall, it feels fine ... it feels familiar ... but it doesn't make me want to do anything but be mad at things and drive recklessly in traffic. It certainly doesn't make me want to go talk to girls. *shudder*
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