Artist: The Morningside
Title: Moving Crosscurrent Of Time
Type: Album
Label: Bad Moon Music

The major criticism of The Morningside’s debut album, 2007’s ‘The Wind, The Trees and the Shadows of the Past’, was that the band relied too heavily on their influences, and as such sounded, whilst competent, a sub standard knock off of their idols. At the time that was a harsh, but fair assessment of their sound, but everyone has to start somewhere and in the end true talent shines through. So it is with their second full length release, ‘Moving Crosscurrent Of Time’, the band have evolved, and though those influences are eminently recognisable and heavily leaned upon, the band’s songwriting and musicianship have evolved to deliver a thoroughly engaging and at times quite beautiful piece of work.

The opening track is a four minute atmospheric introduction, which feels a little overlong. The sounds of rushing winds and carrion birds set a nice scene, but after a short time, the impatient, (and I include myself here), will be reaching for the skip button to get down to the real meat and potatoes of things. So when the real music actually begins it’s well worth the wait. Flavours of ‘Brave Murder Day’ era Katatonia mix with Paradise Lost and Agalloch to serve up a deliciously mournful sound. Igor Nitkin’s vocals burst forth with a cold rasp that chills to the core, whilst the guitars of Igor and Sergey Chelyadinov produce some of the most gorgeously sorrowful doom I’ve heard in many a year, predominantly on the outstanding ‘Autumn People’ and ‘Fourteen’. Sometimes the influences are still a bit too obvious however, the Agalloch homage is constantly obvious, but nothing quite so much as during the title track, where it seems they have borrowed a whole section straight out of Katatonia’s ‘Brave’ (complete with piercing death scream) and set it to the riff from Paradise Lost’s ‘As I Die’. That aside though, the end result more than makes up for these indiscretions. ‘Insomnia’ has a lead riff that is completely infectious, sticking in my brain for days at a time, whilst the title track keeps things interesting as it twists and turns through various stages and styles, all held together with some dreamy riffs and some excellent technical drumming from Boris Sergeev. I honestly don’t mind that they’ve Frankensteined bits out of Katatonia and Paradise Lost songs to make this one; at least they picked decent songs! ‘The Outcome (Admit One)’, is a ten minute melodic doom opus, chock full of creamy guitarwork, meandering through to a Pink Floydesque synthesiser close, and is the clearest indicator of just how much they have matured musically since their debut offering. The ‘Outro’, is a slight change of style from the rest of the album, but no less welcome, sounding as it does like it would not be out of place on The Cure’s ‘Disintegration’. Did someone mention ‘Day’?…

The Morningside have obviously taken the criticisms thrown at them after the first album and reacted constructively, delivering an album here that is as mature in its songwriting and musicianship as it is excellent in its structure and quality. It sounds also like a lot of effort has gone into the production, giving a full and lustrous sound that gives the music room to breathe. Yes it’s derivative, but despite that, The Morningside are starting to come through to allow their music its own identity and personality, and it’s actually bloody good. Quite frankly, I adore this album.

http://www.myspace.com/themorningsidemusic

Lee Kimber

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