RAISING THE FAWN
The Maginot Line
Sonic Unyon
· Size is relative, especially when it comes to ex-Broken Social Scenester John Crossingham and his three-piece Raising the Fawn.
A few years ago, John Crossingham was best known as part of Broken Social Scene (BSS). However, in the last few years he has started breaking away from that ever-growing posse of Toronto musicians and spending more time concentrating on his post-rock three-piece Raising the Fawn. It was a move well made.
I don’t want to crap all over everybody’s favourite über collective, but compared to Raising the Fawn they are downright boring, even with their impressive roster. Crossingham and his two bandmates can do more as a trio than BSS can do with a five-guitar assault.
On their second full-length, The Maginot Line, the band continues to work in epic sounds and wailing feedback, but with chugging riffs and cracking falsetto, the album owes more to Neil Young and Martin Tielli than it does to any of Crossingham’s other crew. Whether the band is building seven-minute crescendos, or giving a four-minute song the weight of a song twice its length, the result is stunning.
Admittedly, the band is more successful when they stick to the ominous minor-chord theatrics, but even when they try their hand at poppier material, they offer some wild-card hooks and vocal harmonies that hearken back to the golden era of Crowded House. Lay in some handclaps and a gospel-style a capella breakdown, and you have an album that moves in several different directions at once, but never loses track of where it has to go.
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