RUBICON CROSS: "Ep"

Label: Indie 2011

Review by The Bailey Brothers

It’s cool to come across fellow musicians who are buzzing with excitement of what they have recorded. We were pretty impressed with the band Furyon when we saw them live so when their guitar player Chris Green got in touch and told us about his new project we were pleased to receive a copy of the Rubicon Cross EP.

“Moving on”: A clean atmospheric opening underpinned by clean guitar from Cross and the second CJ holds onto an awesome vocal note you know this has the beginnings of a quality song if this was the 80’s it would probably lead into a typical cowboy type Jovi song but this is 2011 and it powers into a ball squeezing Zakk Wyldesque riff that’s ignites this ditty. The song has many changes in both clean and distorted guitar if anything the chorus is maybe not strong enough as the rest of the song has raised the bar but with good tempo change, quality vocals and musically tight it’s a cool number.

“Next Worst Enemy”: crammed full like a tin of sardines of attitude, Velvet Revolver style maybe but with a really catchy melodic pre chorus and chorus, the verse has a more stabbed choppy feel which helps the pre chorus and chorus lift. I like the guitar solo which is well structured and there’s a middle 8 section (break down) with a distorted sort of megaphone type of vocal that works well before the track gallops home to a round of applause.

“Are You Angry" again kicks off with clean guitar and vocals intro before gate crashing the picnic on the lawn with a thunderous riff that would have any eloquent aristocrat running for cover .One thing about this band there’s no shortage of ass kicking rifts but the verses have a more open string feel but with distorted guitar maybe clean would have been better before picking up tempo in typical Halloween style. I wasn’t totally sold on the rhythm feel of the chorus it may have road better with a more constant gallop. It was fine vocally and maybe an approach was taken not to do the obvious? Sometimes it felt a little disjointed but again a cool guitar solo and one of the coolest riffs was used for a link after the intro and again at the outro ending.

“Shine”: Thought it was gonna get too predictable with guitar and vocal intro but it actually was all part of a nice ballad that really needed as much thought as the previous songs because it lacked the dynamics of the others where a key change or more soulful guitar solo would have made this a killer song. Maybe to have come out of the guitar solo with just vocals and clean guitar and it would have added a little colour? There’s a really nice change towards the end and that’s what was needed earlier as it got a bit pedestrian (as most ballads do) but the vocals were excellent and the song is good so I just thought this time we had the cake without the icing. Even though again the solo shows great technique it was crying out for a Vito Bratta (White Lion) melodic solo just my opinion. This is a very good EP great guitar playing, great vocals and I definitely think you would be well satisfied purchasing this release. It kicks ass that’s for sure


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