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Crusades

Perhaps You Deliver This Judgment With Greater Fear Than I Receive It

Written by: PP on 06/02/2014 20:37:10

Despite the murky artwork, their brooding name, and blackened theme of their Bandcamp page, Crusades from Ottawa, Canada aren't actually a black metal band although you'd certainly be forgiven if you thought so. I mean even the title of their sophomore album suggests something sinister is going on: "Perhaps You Deliver This Judgment With Greater Fear Than I Receive It". Instead, Crusades are a diabolical punk rock band singing about atheism, antichristianity, secular humanism, and Satanism with "a vehement disdain for the crippling disease that is organized religion." Yes, bring forth your thesaurus, for Crusades rival Bad Religion's Greg Graffin when it comes to lyrical complexity.

Soundwise, the band have been called everything from Satanist pop punk to blackened melodic punk rock. The latter might be closest to the truth, given how most songs are sung with dark clean vocals delivered at mid tempo punk rock speeds. Whatever you call them, the execution both instrumentally and in terms of the vocals is very, very unusual for the genre. You'd have to go back to the 90s and look at some old AFI records to come even close to a reasonable parallel, but even here the vocals aren't as rough so the comparison is only in terms of the mood, and not much else.

That doesn't prevent the band from embedding catchy melody lines into their songs, as "The Signs Of The Times" in particular proves. It's chorus line goes: "The mallet... and the wedge between discernment and belief", which believe it or not, will haunt your mind for weeks from the first time you hear it. Similarly, "The Transport Of Intrepid Souls" is great thanks to its unusually heavy instrumentation to the genre contrasting the dark clean vocal chorus nicely. Elsewhere, some rougher shouting is utilized, but Crusades are at their best when they allow their clean vocalist to roam freely in the blackened corners of their sound. If you want new-thinking in punk rock, this is it.

Download: The Signs Of The Times, The Transport Of Intrepid Souls
For the fans of: (old) AFI, Bad Religion
Listen: Bandcamp

Release date 05.11.2013
No Idea Records