Album Reviews

Damn, that album title sure is a mouthful. Luckily Crusades’ tunes are catchier! This Canadian band is comprised of current and ex-members of Sedatives, The Creeps, Buried Inside, Steve Adamyk Band, Last Communion, Zebrassieres, The Visitors, Pregnancy Scares, Black Tower and others. Which would either mean there’s about a dozen people in this band or that these guys have already served time in more than one band before starting Crusades.

According to the dictionary, a crusade is any vigorous, aggressive movement for the defense or advancement of an idea or cause, which is exactly what these guys are about. Using the accessibility of melodic punkrock, Crusades are out to spread their message of antichristianity, secular humanism and Satanism. And why the hell not. It doesn’t always have to be about girls, right? Instead, “Perhaps…” is ‘a meditation on the life of philosopher, heretic and antichristian martyr Giordano Bruno as an archetype for the modern atheist, freethinker, artist, poet and lover’.

All good and well, but what about the music? Well, vocally these guys have a little bit of Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath’s grit going on and they churn out some pretty tight and dark punkrock tunes. Honestly, the songs could use a couple more hooks to be truly memorable but “Perhaps…” is still worth a couple of spins nonetheless.