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The (International) Noise Conspiracy: The Cross of My Calling

19th November 2008 | by Aidan Williamson

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." said once, a man named Harvey Dent.

While 'villain' may be too strong a word in the case of The (International) Noise Conspiracy's Dennis Lyxzén, it is quite apparent that his stock has plummeted since his days in gravity-defying hardcore band Refused. While his former outfit emblazoned everyone within a twenty-mile-radius of their soundwaves, his new abode may simply illicit a slight finger tap every now and then.

Whether this be an accurate assertion, you be the judge; music that is political in nature desperately needs to reflect its content through sound. For all its merits, The Cross of My Calling is simply too jovial to ever make an impact upon the heart of its listeners. The entire affair feels like a double-episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart albeit without the comedy; bad news presented with a smile on the face.

The smile in question is a very warm one though: the walking bass-lines; the honky-tonk keyboards; the bright and breezy guitars; the impromptu jam-sessions and the 70s psychedelia throwbacks. They all serve to make for a bouncy, buoyant record full of surprise twists and about-faces. What often fails to sit well in the mix are Lyxzén's (someone make this man's name a verb: best Scrabble addition ever) reprisals of his hardcore scream, a trait which rears its head in the second half of the album.

Halves, the decision to have an interlude within an album is always a tricky one to pull off. The Cross and the Calling's use of one makes the album very much a schizophrenic presence. Post-interlude, the album switches proceedings up a notch, seeking to infuse much of the instrumental intensity and tempo that was missing from the pre-interlude times. That said though, this is very much a relative notch; having words like 'dynamite', 'bullets', 'Satan', 'storm the gates' and 'black September' in your song titles raises certain expectations which are never really delivered upon.

For all the fiery 'far-left' rhetoric and focus on spotlighting the crimes of capitalism, The Cross of My Calling sounds remarkably like it could have been recorded in the recesses of rural America; the country that is home to their obvious heroes: Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan and James Brown.

Rating:  6 / 10

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