| CD REVIEW City And Colour |
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Band : City And Colour Although fairly successful with his band Alexisonfire (formed in 2001, the St. Catharines, Ontario, Canadian Post-Hardcore act left us a total of 4 great full-length albums, 12 singles, and 7 extended plays – the last being the Nov. 2010 released Dog's Blood – and 2 split albums) frontman (lead singer & guitarist) Dallas Green always had a hunger for simpler, and acoustic music. In fact, he had been writing that type of material since the age of 13! As far as the acoustic material of his first solo album under the name City And Colour (feeling awkward about performing under his own name, he name derived from Dallas being a city, and green a colour), the November 2005 released Sometimes, is concerned, he started writing that material from the age of 18, finishing writing for it in 2005. Actually, he'd already put songs on the Internet for fans to download, and eventually compiled and re-wrote some of those songs to make that album.Originally only available as download album (which was received amazingly warm by both critics and fans), the album was eventually released in physical form through Vagrant Records, in January 2009. Meanwhile, Green released his second full-length Bring Me Your Love in February 2008, this time featuring a wider array of instruments (harmonica, banjo, drums and lap steel) not used on earlier recordings, giving the whole a more Folk influenced sound. Green, backed with some Canadian musicians, started out on his first City And Colour tour of America in late September 2008, supporting Tegan and Sara alongside Girl In A Coma. That tour was followed by a headlining US tour with support from William Elliot Whitmore, in January 2009. Still promoting Bring Me Your Love, City And Colour embarked on another headlining tour of the US (with support from Lissie) and during June the band not only supported P!nk on her UK tour but also did some headliner shows while being on this side of the Atlantic. During these tours the band already played two of the new album's songs (“Silver And Gold” and “Oh Sister”), as well as a couple of covers they'd never done before (Low's “Murderer”, and Son House's “Grinnin' In Your Face”). Meanwhile, he'd let the guys in Alexisonfire know that he was gonna leave 'em to focus on his now fairly successful solo project. In an interview with Alter The Press, Green revealed that he'd written a bunch of songs of which he liked 15 very much, and expected around 10 to be recorded for his next album. Well, that number eventually became 11, with a total length of 47 ½ minutes! All of which thoroughly enjoyable, especially if you're into melancholic sounding music. I mean, Green's nice high vocal pitch has a way to creep into one's subconscious and stir into emotions one thought having overcome, I tell you! Little Hell became a very varied album, stylistically speaking. There's a fair amount of purely acoustic tracks, but also some with a lap-steel guitar in the back, and even a couple which have a Rock feel to 'em (listen to “Weightless” and the second part of album closer “Hope For Now”). Some songs also have an addition of some piano and/ or atmospheric keyboards. In essence...this is a nicely varied album which, I'm sure, is gonna make City And Colour even more fans than before, and people into the calmer Sad Dad Trad Rock scene are hereby warned to take notice! You could listen to the one song (“Fragile Bird”) on the band's own (http://) cityandcolour.ca, but really it's best to turn your music-loving querries about this band to (www.) myspace.com/dallasgreen, because ou can find much more there (also where videos are concerned, by the way)! If you need more convincing, maybe you might go see a show by the band? C&C sets out on a European tour come September 30, with visits to selected venues in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Holland (Melkweg, Amsterdam, on Oct. 8), Belgium (somewhere in Antwerp on Oct. 9), France, the UK, and Ireland...before embarking on another US tour (from Oct. 27 to Dec. 11). 92/100 Tony. |
