Cross My Heart
Temporary Contemporary
(Deep Elm)
US release date: 13 June 2000
by Erik Gamlem

We can only hope that the madness will end soon. I beg you, you fun little white boys with yr cute hair cuts that live in suburbs or possibly even metropolis, if you are sad and hurting and alone and overcome by the looming cityscape that encompasses yr horizon and just can't deal with the fact that cute indie girls won't date you, please don't pick up guitars and sing about it. I implore you. I'm on my knees crying. I this what you want?

Emo, as if all music wasn't emotional. As if you can market a specific sound to a demographic. If I could put a useless label on music, it would definitely be emo. If music is played with passion and heart and comes out simply because it can not be helped then it's emo. So can we stop calling this horrible over produced, sing/yell/whine washy music emo? Okay?

If you want to be a participant in this no-motion movement, by all means help yr self to a big old plate of Cross My Heart. By the second song you already get what the quartet is about. Mid Tempo songs, washed out with boring arpeggiation and scale work, with over compensating chords struck at the most devastating moments. There is more stop star action in these songs then a 100-meter race run by drunks.

The vocals enough to be desired. They are lazy and standard. The guy could sing in one of those tops of pops radio rock bands. His only problem is his lyrics are really over dramatic and unoriginal. You don't have to wonder if he's read the beat poets and watched John Hughes films like any other suburban middle class white boy. Oh, and the best part is sometimes there is some added reverb on the vocals to heighten the drama. Please.

There is nothing daring, original or worthwhile with the white boy rock movement. The music displayed by Cross My Heart is indicative of a very lazy movement, based more on fashion and "cool" then on talent, expansion of sound or ingenuity. Cross My Heart is just another boring band in a long line of wasted air space.

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