Full Album Premiere & Review: C.Ross, Skull Creator
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on July 12th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream C.Ross’ Skull Creator in full. Album is out July 13 on Echodelick Records, Noise Agony Mayhem, Party Product and Ramble Records.]
C.Ross is a new not-quite-solo incarnation of guitarist, singer and songwriter Chad Ross, best known these days as the frontman for Toronto cosmic blissmakers Comet Control, also formerly of Quest for Fire and The Deadly Snakes, and Skull Creator is the first outing under the new nom de plume. In the past, Ross has issued material apart from bands under the guise of Nordic Nomadic, with at least two full-lengths out in a 2007 self-titled (there are still CDs on Bandcamp; I just bought one and you can too) and 2011’s Worldwide Skyline (review here), which served as something of a bridge as regards studio work between the then-coming end of Quest for Fire, who’d still play live into 2012 before breaking up in earliest 2013, and the beginning of Comet Control that same year.
How, then, is C.Ross not Nordic Nomadic? Two things. First, 2011 was 11 years ago, and sometimes you decide to put something in your own name, or at least closer to it. Second, the recording situation and other players involved is different. Though Ross is certainly the defining presence of Skull Creator‘s eight songs and 44 minutes, his layered vocal harmonies and quiet guitar are rarely alone, as even “The Stranger” is fleshed-out with his own Mellotron-style keyboards, often subtle but definitely there bass, and drums by Joshua Wells (Destroyer, Lightning Dust, ex-Black Mountain), who is the other key contributor, handling production, percussion, the mix, more keys, drums, and so on.
The first thing one hears upon clicking play or lowering the needle, is, in fact drums leading into “Buzzin’ in the Bush,” which feels like a conscious decision even if it wasn’t on the part of Ross as figurehead of the project to immediately shift expectation away from solo-acoustic singer-songwriterism. As drifty and serene as Skull Creator gets between the swelling key-strings of “Takin’ a Dip” and the chirping crickets of side B leadoff “On Golden Pond,” there’s always more going on than guy-and-guitar navelgazing.
Aaron Goldstein‘s pedal steel, as heard echoing in the distance of closer “Tracks in the Snow,” adds to the lush ambience there, and Isaiah Mitchell of Earthless, The Black Crowes, etc., also contributes guitar to “Buzzin’ in the Bush,” “Skull Creator” and “On Golden Pond,” not having taken part in the writing but making a mark nonetheless as one might expect. All of this works out to a style that is sublimely mellow, even at its most active points — the tambourine and guitar finish of “Buzzin’ in the Bush” might qualify, or the relatively uptempo second half of the penultimate “Way Too Nice” — and an acid folk rock spirit that is decidedly Ross‘ own.
Those who’ve followed his work over the last decade-plus through Quest for Fire and Comet Control if not also Nordic Nomadic will find Skull Creator recognizable from the vocal melodies alone, as Ross‘ voice, with a breathy, almost sleepy delivery and ready to either stand on its own or add to a wash, doing both on “Wrong Side of the Sky” here with clearer early verses and Wells‘ drums guiding the listener through the layered reaches that comprise most of the song’s second half, pedal steel and all.
And the persona is different because so are the players involved, but the foundational movement of “Skull Creator” itself — the longest inclusion at 7:24 and the end of the vinyl’s side A — resonates along a similar wavelength as some of Quest for Fire‘s work in its bridging of psych, fuzz and folk, but the backing lines of synth, keys, guitar effects, whatever it is, that helps craft that languid roll that defines the song and seems to hit the first of two crescendos right as it approaches its midpoint en route to a dug-in, ultra-fluid light-footed march for the duration, drawing from heavy psych tenets while holding to its wistful spirit overall.
Thinking of “Skull Creator” as a summary for the album that shares its name, it doesn’t quite represent everything on offer in the snare work of “Takin’ a Dip,” the already-noted nature sounds and the suitably wet guitar reverb of “On Golden Pond,” and the almost foreboding would-be-cello-but-is-either-synth-or-bass drone that emerges in the first half of “Tracks in the Snow” and returns to bolster the finish, but it’s a significant sprawl just the same, and the leads into it from the relatively forward “Wrong Side of the Sky” and out of it from the soft guitar intro to “The Stranger” — following the side flip, if you’re listening to the LP — hold together the flow of Skull Creator as an entire work, which is pivotal to the overarching impression made.
About that. It may take repeat listens to let the songs sink in on their own, the ways in which they function together and their individual purposes. The ramble in “Buzzin’ in the Bush” and its casual counterpart “Takin’ a Dip” in the opening salvo — the two shortest cuts save for “Way Too Nice” (4:21) near the end — set up a pastoralism even as they so completely push back on any expectation of solo folk fare. Not that one person can’t be an entire band, just that Skull Creator works quickly to establish that that’s not what’s happening with C.Ross. The Beatlesy turn in “Takin’ a Dip” just after the stop at 3:14 underscores the point of a full-group realization happening, and however it was put together, in layers across different locales or altogether with Wells at the Balloon Factory in Vancouver.
Even when it’s just Ross and Wells, as on “Takin’ a Dip,” “The Stranger” or “Way Too Nice,” that feel is maintained as a uniting factor across material that is varied in mood but drawn together by its open atmosphere and a level of craft colorful enough to suit daytime or night airings, those insects in “On Golden Pond” complementing a sunset-on-water shimmer and the cool nighttime air that follows. Similar evocations of place, time and mind take place throughout Skull Creator, and though Ross has posited that he started the album as a way of “making fun of myself,” the sincerity of the record’s and his expressiveness in doing so are unquestionable. Is it a walk in the woods? Fire crackling with fresh wood? Wherever you find yourself, the point is getting there.
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