Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. beautifully implodes Crosses sonic foundations

The duo operating under the moniker Crosses have, since first appearing in 2011, been rife with melodrama and intense feelings. Their grandiosity plays with sparsity creating an experimental mix that rarely fails to deliver its intended payload.

For their second album, they're creating a textured complex of emotional baggage and industrial lust. Closely following on from 2022’s PERMANENT.RADIANT EP, which reintroduced the world to Crosses after a brief pause, Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. implodes the pairs sonic foundation. Moreno’s hoarseness suffuses the spaces between Lopez’s production, bringing the three dimensions to reality with the Deftones frontman’s deft weaving of multifaceted lyrical prowess.

An album built around the idea of the title’s cruelly warming sentiment - where life is beautiful yet fleeting - throughout this pair of new gothic romantics manipulate religion (“Last Rites”) and yearning (“Grace”) into a package of powerfully sparse cuts. The underlying melodramatic framework pegged by Moreno finds its tides ebbing and flowing, urged on with voracious depth that lingers long after the foreboding synths have recoiled.

It’s the subtle touches that create an overwhelming sense of unity on Goodnight. The Cure’s Robert Smith appears through the dense fog, making a late appearance with a subtle howl, adding increasing depth to the on-the-nose “Girls Float † Boys Cry” while Run The Jewel's El-P packs even more power to “Big Youth”’s roiling rage.

Alongside 2014’s self titled debut, Goodnight explores the creative chemistry between this pair of kindred spirits with glorious abandon - no side of Crosses is anything but a pure reaction of two likeminded pals. And even at its most punishingly dark, Goodnight is built from a foundation of light, the same that begs to bleed through its open spaces even when hope feels lost - a mark of Crosses’ undeniable strength.