Label: Carry On Music
Release date: January 15, 2021
Production: John Palumbo
Album length: 63.17 min
Genre: Art Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
Crack the Sky are an old American rock band, a progressive rock band to be exact, who kicked up quite a bit of dust among critics and musicians with their 1975 debut. Rolling Stone named the self-titled debut the debut album of the year. The band never broke up. Three original members are still in the sextet today, while the creative nucleus has always been embodied by vocalist, lead songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist John Palumbo.
“Tribes” is an album that reflects the times we live in. On a global level, even though it focuses on criticism of American society. Throughout their career the band has always loved to sail carefree between genres and skillfully melt them into their own kind of musical conglomerate. In that regard, art rock is the more fitting label these days. The new album has 13 tracks. That’s a lot, really a lot, and it runs over 63 minutes. The guys could definitely have saved a few ideas for later, but still. They felt differently. That everything has to come out. Onto the album. Maybe it’s the last one. Palumbo has, after all, already entered his eighth decade.
“Tribes” is at times extremely dark, and thundering too. Angry, furious, accusatory, and firmly grounded throughout. The opening title track sets that up. Extremely punchy in its lead phrase and its polished chorus melody, it lets the band instantly confirm its sharpened art profile with a flourish of added percussion in the outro. The mandolin in Another Civil War, a song kneaded from a completely different dough, confirms this brilliant, internalized sense for combining musical elements, which gives Crack the Sky’s music the stamp of music “with brains.” Another Civil War also carries a playfully slipped-in flute ornament in the outro, a deliberately “distorted” take on the motif of the Confederate anthem.
The messages in the lyrics force you to think. This poetry transcends all the differences between people. Between the (political and other) camps people join or follow, because in the end only one thing counts. Healthy (Native American) common sense on the individual level. Overcoming differences can of course only be achieved through love, and the band sensibly weaves it into the Another Civil War verses: “Love wins.” And in today’s times that is all the more valuable. Actually the greatest value. Keeping your own head and keeping the strength to take responsibility for your every action.
You couldn’t have expected this much sharpness and rage (the songs Another Civil War, Stranger in a Strange Land, the verse in Quick – they stun with how the atmosphere develops), and yet. The excellent cover art hints at something like it, the kind I’d sooner have assigned to some punk/hard rock hybrid like Warrior Soul. That cover perfectly embodies a reflection of the global state of things we’ve been witnessing for the past year.
But since this is an art rock album, it has its own distinct musical form, traceable through the band’s discography and, as said, united around the aural essence of Palumbo, drummer Joey D’Amico and guitarist Rick Witkowski. “Tribes” is a newly measured step on the band’s path of natural self-evolution. Don’t go looking for worn-out, technically complex escapades here, just a complete devotion to following feelings in building atmosphere. On “Tribes” Crack The Sky come across as an incredibly in-tune, self-grown musical entity that gathers under its artistic wing influences of punk, old seventies rock, traceable neo-classical touches (string and woodwind arrangements), folk (country) influences and pop. The band isn’t ashamed to experiment with programmed samples either (Dear Leaders).
Palumbo isn’t known as a technically polished singer. But he has tremendous charisma and works brilliantly in the aural image of the songs themselves. At the same time the band phenomenally covers the singer with additional backing harmonies, and the vocal is often deliberately effected too. Especially in the tracks that are distinctly dark.
The guitar has a distinctly rock’n’roll bite and some riffs literally leap at the listener’s throat! Such is Blowing Up Detriot. The fourth track on the album, where Crack the Sky finally confirm a polished, internalized sense of musicality. Also when it comes to achieving pomp. Specifically, that pomp is intensified in this very song. That’s why it would have had no trouble conquering the radio waves of the eighties.
The production is organic, remarkably coherent and breathes with full lungs. The compositions develop by building up atmosphere. That’s the main charm of art rock and its appeal. A fusion of influences from The Beatles, Eagles, Styx, Kansas, with a distinctly sharpened rock edge (the brilliantly placed guitar solo in Quick) that can speak to a real relentlessness, which gives the tracks in places a whiff of alternative rock, and in creating atmosphere the whole thing even comes across as comparable to the apocalyptic (also conspiratorial) atmosphere of some (hard-to-pin-down) Blue Öyster Cult (Drinking My Self Sober). “Tribes” definitely won’t leave you high and dry. And there’s more. The band easily rocks you into a funky pop groove too, courtesy of the playful The Lost Boys, which closes the album and delivers one more compositional oddity (well, Crack the Sky got to know funk up close on their seventies albums already). You pick your favorites this time, since this is an extremely well-crafted and characterful album. Multiple listens are a must. You’ll be discovering it for a long time.
Crack the Sky remain a largely overlooked band in Slovenia (to this day), and this review most likely won’t bring them any (new) Slovenian followers either. Over their otherwise long-lived career, the label “the best progressive rock band from the USA you haven’t heard of” has often stuck to them. Even after the 18th studio album it remains that way. Equally undeniable is that “Tribes” is an album you’ll want to hear again even after 63 minutes. It’s an album that, as a whole, hits you with the intensity of an extremely conciliatory dialogue between poetry (the message) and the sheer reach of the songwriting. A brilliantly crafted sense of contemplative complementing, a distinctive kind of complementing, with intense alternations between hard, sharpened, dark passages and soft, fragile parts that fill the listener with anxiety and bitterness. That’s what the band wanted too. To move and rouse the listener with their music. To shake them. “Tribes” is, plainly and simply put, an excellent art rock album, the kind they don’t make anymore. Music lovers will be busy with it for a long time.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
01. Tribes (4:36)
02. Another Civil War (5:21)
03. Dear Leaders (5:01)
04. Blowing Up Detroit (4:39)
05. Quick (8:34)
06. Another Beautiful Day (4:13)
07. All My Innocence (4:26)
08. Drinking Myself Sober (4:39)
09. Stranger in a Strange Land (4:43)
10. We Don’t Know (4:06)
11. Alligator Man (4:25)
12. Boom Boom (4:09)
13. The Lost Boys (4:25)
Line-up:
John Palumbo – guitar, keyboards, vocals
Rick Witkowski – guitar, backing vocals
Bobby Hird – guitar, backing vocals
Glenn Workman – keyboards, backing vocals
Dave DeMarco – bass guitar, backing vocals
Joey D’Amico – drums, backing vocals
