Moral Crux

Something More Dangerous (Lookout!)
by Scott Hefflon

These guys never stopped, huh? Moral Crux woulda been on a lot of our lists of damn fine punk bands if the list were longer and whoever asked hadn’t lost interest in yet another aging punker rattling off bands that “never made it anywhere.” Something More Dangerous is almost that, but something just doesn’t click. It ain’t Fat Wreck punkpop, it ain’t gritty rawk, it’s kinda half here and half there. Think U.S. Bombs or Dwarves produced by Mass at Sonic Iguana (like Moral Crux were).

You get a raunchy record with all the raunch polished nice and neat. That’s not to say this is a bad record by any means, just that the first half sounds too much like mall-punk, ya know? Damn fine songwriting (kinda Misfitsy chords and melodies), but it comes out sounding like Supergrass or mid-tempo Funeral Oration. While this is a good CD to pick up just to break the monotony, Moral Crux could really be a great band if they’d choose a direction and go in it. The latter half of the disc is the best, when the songs really open up and jam, but the punk snarl holds back a good song.
(PO Box 11374 Berkeley, CA 94712)