Crossroad Saints Drop New Single “Cradle to the Grave”
By Deuce
Crossroad Saints dropped the single and video for “Cradle to the Grave”, a rousing, electric guitar heavy ditty about the times and trials of man, today on August 6. The track will be immediately followed up by the album A Song For You on August 20, just a week after the first Friday the 13th of the year and a couple of days before the so called Seasonal Blue Moon.
Now, you’ve got to give it up to the Saints on this single. It’s well baked in southern fried organs, guitars, and bass that stands up and speaks in its prolificacy. Its best moments are early on in the verses when the bass gets to grooving, the drums open up all the way, and front man Daryl Venable starts musing on the mic. He’s actually quite the lyricist, alternating between trying to “color between the lines” and observing “the masses dazzled by gadgetry” while pursuing that most American of pastimes—the almighty dollar bill.
But when this anthem of sorts goes up in energy (on the hook, during the bridge, etc.) it truly skyrockets out of here with a maelstrom of electric guitars, searing organs, and the sort of motion that most songs would do well to encompass.
Such kinetic expression appears in abundance on the rest of the album, particularly on the titular track. An up tempo, straightforward affair, it avails itself of the effervescence of what sounds like a horn section, although it could actually only be a track or two of this instrument. Still, it’s enough to get Venable to growling on the mic device and letting loose some old fashioned ‘owwwwws’, the likes of which are rarely heard this side of James Brown.
Interestingly enough, the band actually only consists of Venable (who also mans the B3), John Slack on the bass (who does anything but that), and his kin Mike Slack on the drums and percussion (ditto). But there’s a plethora of guest musicians on everything from the sax, trumpet, and trombone to Corey Miller on the strings and Tim Wright on the pedal steel guitar, giving the album a sense of completion that’s sure to satisfy music lovers all over.
