Alexisonfire Grows Up With Fourth Album Old Crows/Young Cardinals
Posted June 25, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Alexisonfire is all grown up.
Well, perhaps not quite, but the St. Catharines, Ont. based hardcore band has revealed its most mature studio effort yet with Old Crows/Young Cardinals.
The group’s fourth album, which dropped Tuesday, continues a progression that following its first two records – 2002’s self-titled debut and Watch Out (2004). OCYC shows an outfit bent on moving from frantic, frenetic guitar parts and shrill screams to carefully layered, heavily produced rock songs that don’t so much slap you in the face as put you in a headlock.
The album’s opening track, “Old Crows,” says it all with a chorus that wails, “We are not the kids we used to be.”
True enough, but at what cost? Gone – or at least scaled back – are George Pettit’s shrieks, as are the echoing, atmospheric guitar lines that helped form the band’s early sound.
But co-front man Dallas Green says his band’s not getting old, just more honest.
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily mature, that’s just the truth. When we first started three of the guys were in high school,” he says when asked if the album marks an arrival at musical adulthood.
Green ads that although some of the original Alexis edge and exuberance have been traded in for a more refined and deliberate approach at recording, that’s all part of the group’s plan to stay relevant and interesting.
“To the people who want us to stay the same band for every record, this is just us saying we’re not going to,” he explains.
Which isn’t all bad for fans.
Alexisonfire still represents one of Canadian rock’s more authentic major players, a role evidenced by the way it shows range on new tracks like “Burial” or “The Northern.”
“I think before if we would have tried to write a track like (that) we probably wouldn’t have let ourselves,” Green admits.
“One of us would have said, ‘No that doesn’t sound like us.'”
It’s a mindset that’s changed along with the Alexis sound.
Recording the second album in a row with now-entrenched former Jersey drummer Jordan Hastings (who joined the group prior to 2006 album Crisis) has also made a big difference in terms of the band’s confidence in its evolving style.
“With Crisis it was like we had a new drummer,” Green recalls. “With Old Crows/Young Cardinals it’s like we’re Alexisonfire.”
Photo courtesy Vanessa Heins/Listen Harder
