Crosses: Crosses

Chino heads down the ambient highway

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Joined by Far man Shaun Lopez and Chuck Doom, Crosses is Chino Moreno's most high profile project outside of Deftones since Team Sleep, and it's an album of ambient and darker cinematic soundscapes.

While Chino’s hypnotic, other worldly tones are the album’s defining characteristic, that’s not to discount the incredible music below. There’s barely a rock guitar in sight as the album floats along on dense electronic beats and subtle yet engaging instrumentation. The only argument you can make for this being a rock record is the band members’ day jobs. With influences from fields as afar as The Velvet Underground and latter day Kanye West, this is an album built for late night plays and a serene mood. If you read that as a metaphor for boring, it isn’t. Bitches Brew is the best song on offer, sounding like something that could soundtrack an intense sex scene from a David Lynch movie. It’s the aural equivalent of being orally pleasured while being suffocated by a velvet pillow.