Liquid Cross Hateful cassette
Eugene, OR trio LIQUID CROSS follows 2025’s Don’t Think with their new tape Hateful—four songs plus one hidden track, and there is no open space anywhere. Reverb fills every gap, nothing in the mix sits closer to you than anything else, and somehow it never turns to mud. It’s thick but it never drags, and the pop bones stay legible throughout. The WIPERS are a frequently cited influence, but my brain went to the ’80s by another route: the cavernous murk of ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN’s Heaven Up Here crossed with the everything-at-once mix of HÜSKER DÜ’s New Day Rising. I had “This World” pegged as my favorite, a one-minute bop that gets in and gets out. Then the bass that opens “So Shut Down” came out of nowhere and took the tape over. Then I braced for the five-minute double song, “The New One”/”Low Lesson,” to lose me, and it ended up being the first thing I had to play again. This is good shit, and proceeds go to a Eugene youth advocacy charity. More, please.