Crosstide Saturday, Oct 22

[October 19th, 2005] [POP] Crosstide doesn't sound like a Portland band. In fact, Crosstide doesn't particularly sound like Crosstide from one recording to the next. Chalk it up to being a maturing, impressionable and persistent young band. What started as a hardcore-inspired group formed by Portland high-school friends in the late '90s has slowly made its way through punk-rock sloppiness and a self-loathing emo wilderness to emerge as a bona fide epic pop-rock outfit à la Bends-era Radiohead or U2.

At first listen, there isn't much to separate Crosstide's Life as a Spectator from the legions of Brit-inspired heavy pop on modern-rock radio. Frontman Bret Vogel's voice slips in and out of falsetto all too cleanly while his bandmates pound away, and probably look really good doing it. The band is unabashed in its adherence to the aesthetic of radio-friendly pop, which might turn some of the indier-than-thou crowd off. But accepting Life as a Spectator's charms is sort of like being born again. Once it happens, you just can't shut the fuck up about it.

The percussion sounds really, really good: Matt Henderson's drum patterns criss-cross unexpectedly and jump to the forefront of tracks, giving songs like "Sleep" an overwhelming sense of urgency. That's also some pretty awesome New Order style guitar on "Opposite Day." And you can't say Vogel doesn't have his charms, either. Maybe his singing is a little overdramatic sometimes, but he outright nails the chorus every time. At the end of "There's Hell," he really tears the hell out of that breakdown, singing punchily with his band, "Still yourself ba-by you're lost, stay where you ah-are!"

It would be understandable if the band that translated high-school hyperactivity into professional pop had forgotten why it started in the first place. But Crosstide hasn't. I talked to a somewhat homesick Vogel as Crosstide made its way through the red states, touring with Electric Six, and he related this story to me:

"We wound up in Florida somehow because the show got moved, so our promoter topped us onto this bill playing after this punk-rock band where all the kids were, like, 15 years old. It was probably the best thing that could have happened—we were all transported to the days when we were in bands just like that. It was very nostalgic and just fun. No one was thinking about 'Let's put on a great show, and play the right parts'—we just plugged in and played."