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City and Colour: Bring Me Your Love

08th February 2008 | by Aidan Williamson

There seem to be two distinct ways of coping with the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Representing option one, we have Amy Winehouse's breakfast, second, we have the acoustic side project.

For his second album, Alexisonfire guitarist and vocalist Dallas Green (a city and a colour, get it?) continues his choice of the latter. Despite the abuse his voice has likely had during his day job his soothingly warm vocals seem completely unaffected.

While the first few songs sweep by everything feels too low-key and unassuming. When fifth entry "Sleeping Sickness" enters the fore, however, we safely remove our finger from the button of the ejector seat beneath us. With it's swelling ranks of instruments, "Sleeping Sickness" is likely to provide the breakaway pop hit of the album, whereas the others serve more as book numbers. It's a nice book though mind. In his move to bring other instruments in the mix, Green avoids the prospect of "Bring Me Your Love" becoming just another pleasant journey through the porches of middle America. Roping in harmonica, banjo and percussion backup he steps forward from the sparse instrumentation of his debut to bolster his sound into something more distinct.

Throughout it's run, Green's sophomore album holds a fair few surprises. The clap injected, all singing rhythms of "Constant Knot" can be counted as one of them. Mores the pity that Green doesn't leave his lo-fi safety zone more often. Despite it's consistent peaks, the album does become a tad tiresome and repetitive on occasion, especially within it's second half.

Returning to the 'in his favour' part, Green has proven himself an accomplished lyricist again. With his world-weary insight, he provides true depth and meaning to those looking for it. Indeed, some of the tracks, including "Against the Grain", wouldn't be amiss on the soundtrack of "I'm Not There", such is their intelligence, wit and timelessness.

Sure, it's not a recommended soundtrack for the weekly bridge-jumpers anonymous meeting, but at least it won't require a visit to the replacement parachutes for ejector seats shop. You should of seen the skies when Staind were around, fair few people got on the outside (lookin' down) pretty quickly that day.

Rating: 6 / 10

Comments

tim

commented 10 months ago

OMG where to begin. this is probably THE best album out since 2005(when sometimes came out). Honestly fitting what he does into a sterotype of "a rock star lifestyle" is the most irelevent thing to his cd. I have to give this cd an 25 out of 10 if not more. EVERY song on this cd is amazing and its well woth the listen.

p.s.- the death of me is the 3rd song on the cd. get your facts right

Aidan Williamson

commented 10 months ago

duly noted and fixed. Thanks.

I don't think our rating system goes up to 25, I haven't even been allowed to use the 10 yet. I like to think that maybe fireworks launch out of the top of the 10/10 image and scatter over the page, one day.... one day.

Scott

commented 10 months ago

6/10 ? And you gave Simple Plan a 7/10... duly noted indeed.

Aidan W.

commented 10 months ago

Marks are formulated based on genre and target audience. If we didn't do that then we'd feel obliged to give every album that didn't seek to change the world a 4/10.

Roughly translated, it means... If you like pop/punk, simple plan's is a solid album with a fair few highlights.

If you like acoustic serenades, City and Colour is again a great albeit flawed album. Bright Eyes just raised the bar too far for this sort of thing it seems.

Scott

commented 9 months ago

"Despite the abuse his voice has likely had during his day job his soothingly warm vocals seem completely unaffected."

Making reference to his role in Alexisonfire, im unsure why you would say this. He sings in Alexisonfire in the same soothing, gorgeous manner that he uses on both his solo albums. If you're referring to the screaming in AOF, its a different person.