When Crashings came out I was already out of my nu-metal phase and they were a little too close to that genre for me at the time. I haven't listened to them in a few years, so maybe I should give them another chance.
I think your description might have a lot to do with why this band never gained a wider audience. When they started out with
Crashings, they were marketed as (a) a nu-metal band and (b) Kutless's friends, and if those aren't nails in the coffin for any discerning listener, I don't know what would be. Personally, I always regarded them as an "electronic rock" band. The synthesizers and programming always played an important role. (Maybe that reminded people of Linkin Park - another kiss of death.) You could definitely hear nu-metal overtones in their early work, but the guitar riffs always had a little more "zip" to them and weren't just basic power chords bludgeoning you to death. The rap parts you heard on
Crashings (which were confined to two songs - "New Hope Generation" and "Jackson Five") were done by guests; it was never really a core part of the band's sound, just experimentation that didn't stick with them on future releases. I'd say songs like "Bittersweet", "Ambience", and "Arafax Deep" give the best glimpse at the band's future sound - more synthetic, more difficult to pin down to a single genre, less worried about whether it sounds trendy or not.
Dawn Escapes was mostly
Crashings minus the diversity. Some good songs, but stylistically, it showed no growth and many of the songs were unmemorable due to them all seeming to run together. One of the few times I'd criticize a band for being too
up-tempo.
Captiva was a game-changer because it had to be - their lead guitarist left the band and they were down to a threesome. Still had its rock-oriented moments, but it focused much more on the synthesizers and there was a lot more variance in mood and tempo (a conscious response to criticisms of
Dawn Escapes). This probably confused a lot of their younger audience - I didn't like it at first, either, but I slowly came to regard it as a more creatively satisfying work than their earlier stuff. They played it too safe with the singles - "Hotel Aquarium" just sounded like old Falling Up slowed down, and "Maps" sounded like ordinary mid-tempo pop/rock. The more exploratory stuff like the title track or "The Dark Side of Indoor Track Meets" likely didn't get much exposure, and I can't find any live clips from this era of the band's career, so I don't know if they toured it all that much. Either they shot themselves in the foot here, or the label did, because it was a good record that didn't get much discussion. Since you own it, you might as well listen to it - expect that it won't be terribly similar to
Crashings, and that you won't be totally blown away by it at first - it has to sink in.
I'd definitely recommend that you listen to
Fangs!, which isn't as complete in terms of individual songs as
Captiva, but it's got more of a rhythmic base to it and it's a fascinating record in terms of the story that it attempts to tell (which you won't understand on the first several listens - I'm still not convinced that I do). I can't find anything on this record that sounds remotely similar to
Crashings outside of the rare heavy guitar riff here and there. It's even a slight stretch to get from
Captiva to here. I think it's their best record, but once again, it got zip for publicity and the band didn't seem to tour it all that much (I heard they switched from churches and other "Christian" venues to small clubs, but I don't recall that tour ever making its way down here, and their hometown of Portland, Oregon ain't
that far away.)
