This is the debut LP from Ohio's Crime of Passing. It's been a while since I've given a post-punk band the time of day but I'm glad that I fell into this release. The band has summoned from the depths of their souls nine spells of immersive dire attraction. A compact of pessimistic passages that nails the sentiment of a world collapsing in a drizzling shower of decay- disintegrating like a drying oil painting that has had a jar of turpentine poured over the lip of its crown. They sound like a grim and gritty rendition of The Danse Society, with reverberations of corrosion echoing through their joints as they writhe amongst the dark sequences of jangling chords and anthemic carousels of distorted groove. Crime of Passing debut tumbles out from the band's imaginations without pretense, but with a whole lot of speed and fitful lucidity. Fast post-punk often has the problem of coming across as excessively reverby power-pop, but the dourness of singer Andie Luman's pleading, provocative wails, the course rebuke and ramble of the gothy synths, and the unorthodox geometry of the guitar work manage to legitimate the band's post-Joy Division bonafides. The muggy whimsy of "Vision Talk" feels like Drab Majesty illuminated by the feeble flickering fluorescence of neon lights bouncing off the dancefloor of a resurrected ghostship, while tracks like "Tender Fixation" permit the purging of bizarre infatuations through a riotous tear of uproarious guitars. "Hunting Knife" feels like it is searching for a dance partner to tango with it in the pale of the moon, and wickedly frayed arrangments like "World on Fire" impress upon the mind visions of Siouxsie and the rest of the Banshees rehearsing an act of self-immolation in an abandoned rural church. Crime of Passing is post-punk, embracing the cold purity of its corrupting potential and finding salience in the form through which it can rise like a twisted, ashen phoenix.
