Review Summary: A breath of slightly stale air, but still fresher than the rest.
Post-Punk has come a long way to becoming a household name of never changing, beaten only by Post-Rock and those weird shrieking/burping youngsters that think they are the new wave of modern Metal music. But Post-Punk has never been only Joy Division and the Cure, as absurd as it may seem to many. The British collective Autobahn is here to both bathe in the sameness of the revived version of the genre, but also to subtly show middle fingers to all their contemporaries.
In a lot of ways is
The Moral Crossing pretty much just like the rest of the revivalism stampede. It is dark, gloomy and uses all the same instrumental tricks and tropes solidified by the slightly echoic production. But what makes it different are the atmosphere and the multilayered musicianship that somehow creates a whole new experience (new to the revivalist era).
On multiple occasions the band just goes out of their way to perform in the most intense, building and atmospherically rich way possible. The songs display a great amount of emotional power, vocally and instrumentally, but each delving into their own personal way of delivering that. “Obituary” shows that you can be a Joy Division derivative, but you shouldn’t be afraid of bursting out vocally; the title track methodically builds on despair and invigorating instrumentation that grows by each second with those near-mechanical drums and desperate vocals; “Torment” suddenly presents a much more careful approach and overall comes off much more gently and bitterly, in spite of being one of the most explosive cuts on here; and “Execution (Rise)” is just crazy.
The band does a fantastic job at keeping consistency all throughout the record and not falling into the pit of repetitiveness. The drums on here are a separate praise to bestow. They can gently lead you through the song or can crush you right away. The production, although nothing outstanding, manages to at least not mix everything up into an overly echoic mess and lets, for example, the aforementioned drums shine. Autobahn did great with what they were given and presented one of the most intriguing Post-Punk revivalism albums of recent years.
