Album Review: Casandra's Crossing - Garden Of Earthly Delights

Sometimes we make judgments about musicians and bands that are surface level, that aren't necessarily fair, but nonetheless give us a shortcut to placing them in the right place in our thinking. With as much music being released as we get every year, there simply isn't time to properly assess and absorb everything. We need those shortcuts if we are ever going to remember each new thing we hear from among the flood of other music we will barely hear long enough to finish listening to.

In the case of Casandra Cross, that judgment came when hearing her singing on the EP from The L.I.F.E. Project. That was a decent enough release, but the thought I jotted down in my mental notebook was that Casandra was a singer very much in the mold of Lzzy Hale, who I have said on multiple times is the greatest voice of her/my generation. So when this album reached my inbox, and I realized who was involved, the note is the only reason I was convinced to listen to yet another album featuring George Lynch.

I say that part because despite his acclaim as a guitar hero, I was too young to ever care about Dokken, and I have not been interested at all in any of the many collaborations he has been involved in for this particular label. Until now, that is. And why? The mental note I made has calcified, as Casandra on this record sounds even more like a doppelganger for Lzzy Hale. And with a more eclectic blanket of guitar sounds to sing over, this record moves from being yet another put-together collaboration to being more of an alternate universe imagination of what Halestorm could be.

When this collaboration works best is when Lynch is being his odd self, utilizing more open strings and ringing chords. That open space is lighter and airier, and gives Casandra's grit more room in the mix to reverberate. When she roars, and the music isn't filling all that space, her melodies are able to hit us with full power. It's almost the case that you can have heavy guitars or heavy vocals, but the combination of the two comes out sounding smaller because they cancel each other out.

That means songs like "Ring Me Around" and "Closer To Heaven" hit a sweet spot that melds 80s rock with the modern day, feeling fresh while also not feeling played out. Maybe it's just my weakness for that particular kind of voice, but Casandra is a star on this record. What is also true is that "Run For Your Life" and "Wicked Woman", which veer toward the heavier side, don't work as well. The tones are right, but they flatten out enough of the melodic edge to sound too predictable, too inconsequential.

All that means is the record isn't perfect, which is something I would say about 99% of the albums I've heard in my life. And since this isn't one of those records that barely cracks half an hour, having one misstep doesn't change the calculus.

There are a few takeaways I have after listening to this record multiple times. 1) Casandra Cross has the potential to be the next singer who catches and keeps my attention. 2) The difference in how I'm reacting to this record, as opposed to one of the Sweet/Lynch ones, reminds me how important singers and vocal melodies are. 3) Frontiers Records has put out a ton of albums this year, few of them have done anything at all for me, and this might just be the best of them all.

That's plenty for me.