The songs on "The Crossing" deal with topics including loss ("Inwards," "Chance"), separation ("Close Action"), dehumanization ("Lost Patrol"), and the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion ("The Storm"). Many of the songs are characterized by Brzezicki's highly-compressed drums and the heavily effects-treated, layered guitars of Adamson and Watson. The music often demonstrates a clear influence of Scottish traditional music, particularly obvious in the pipe-band rhythms of "In a Big Country" and "Fields of Fire" and the swirling, Gaelic guitar intro to "The Storm." This caused the band to be categorized as a Celtic rock band, which sometimes led to unfavorable comparisons with other bands such as Thin Lizzy.