Cross Faded is a ripping tribute to getting fucked up. LA’s premier craft beer-themed powerviolence band Trappist (featuring members of Spazz, Despise You and Infest) join forces with the self-proclaimed “full-blown marijuana addicts” in Connoisseur for a ripping split that delivers both speed and sludge.
Trappist starts side A off with the record’s title track before jumping right into the puns: “Crush Pils, Destroy!”, “The One Thing That Still Holds Brew,” “Number of the Years.” The beerheads don’t deviate dramatically from their established formula and they clearly don’t have to: the nine songs on Trappist’s side of the split contain a heavy dose of stomping, to-the-point powerviolence with a solid ratio of short to long (relatively speaking) songs.
Cross Faded is Connoiseur’s first release in four years, or an eternity by genre standards. The stonerviolence quartet describe their sound as similar to Earth Crisis, if Earth Crisis smoked weed and listened to Spazz, but the Oakland quartet are much less serious. Songs like “Stay High” and “Your Ass is Grass” are hazy powerviolence tunes, while “The Prize” and “Double Barrel Shotgun” highlight the band’s sludgier side.
Tankcrimes are set to release Cross Faded on September 10.