December 10, 2018
Ford Street Records
Crack of Dawn – Spotlight Heather Savage August 22, 2018 Albums, Music Reviews, New Album Between the start of the millennium and today, pop seemed to lose a lot of the edgy rebelliousness that made rock, hip-hop and other styles so explosively popular and uniting in the preceding half century of music. It wasn't clear where all of the bucolic energy seemed to go, much less when, if ever, it would return, and in its place we got this sort of faux angry electro pop that was supposedly inspired by punk rock, beat poetry and urban experimentalism of the early 1980s but failed on all counts to contain the same level of respect for DIY ethics. It's been a rough time, but there have been a couple of memorable moments and crucial developments that have kept us going, even if they have been dramatically overshadowed by the interests of the corporate establishment. But now I think we're beginning to see a slight change in the tide. Artists are taking control over their careers and the role of labels and third party entities is being reduced and phased out in favor of more independent values. Along with all of these developments, we're seeing a lot of bands that had previously gone silent return to the spotlight, now enjoying the freedoms that this new look industry is beginning to allow us. I've got to say that among all of the phoenixes that are rising from the ashes at the moment, the group that I am the happiest to see return to the fold is Crack of Dawn, Canada's vibrant, striding jazz/soul/R&B outfit that once upon a time was on the cusp of taking over the charts completely until industrial politics made their stately goal too complicated to reach. Showing us that they're back and better than ever, Crack of Dawn dropped an all new full length album called Spotlight on international audiences last year and its finally beginning to get the respect and rotation that it's worthy of here in the United States, a symbolic final frontier for these Canadian funk pioneers.