By Len Comaratta (Consequence of Sound)
[...] Menahan Street Band's The Crossing is front-loaded with the album’s two
pre-release singles, the title track and “Lights Out”. The former
bridges back to the debut’s closing number, a cover of Bill Conti’s
“Going the Distance”, while the latter serves to set the tone for the
remainder of the current album. Much of the material on The Crossing
was recorded in the wee hours of the morning, when mood and mind are
apt to wander down those lesser lit passageways. The songs are not
necessarily a nocturne as much a carefully focused array of vibe, mood,
and emotion often associated with the pre-dawn hours. But the slightly
haunting, lower-timbre drive throughout most of The Crossing is
occasionally set aside for lighter fare such as the titular opening
number or “Everyday a Dream”, which has the feel of Young-Holt
Unlimited’s “Soulful Strut” if Sly Stone and Burt Bacharach had been
consulted.
Though the music on The Crossing was recorded over a span of
two years, there is a consistency throughout that is representative of a
collaboration that comes from musicians truly in tune with each others’
creative instincts. Described as “not soul music per se, [but rather]
‘dark night of the soul’ music,” Brenneck and team fully expect
listeners’ minds to “wander into some weird places.” The naturally
cinematic aura hovering throughout The Crossing coupled with such nomadic cogitation allows the listener to imagine a new soundtrack with each playback.
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