City And Colour - Guide Me Back Home

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 3 / 11 / 2018

Label: Dine Alone Music
Format: CD X2

intro

Beautiflly recorded and intimate double CD live album from City And Colour, the project of Canadian vocalist/guitarist Dallas Green

‘Guide Me Back Home’ is the latest release from City And Colour, the guise of Canadian vocalist/guitarist Dallas Green. The album features twenty tracks that were recorded over the course of twenty-five solo, stripped-down concerts across his native Canada during 2017. The album features tracks covering City And Colour’s entire back catalogue, so there’s a great mix of older and newer material. The performances are gently accompanied by subtle harmonies and organ/piano in places. Overall it manages to sound minimal and the intimacy of the gigs is captured really well. With the stripped-back style of the performance, this ‘live’ album almost takes on a studio album feel and sounds absolutely beautiful. It is crystal clear and the audience are pin drop silent, so you get the full experience but are reminded these tracks were cut live by Green’s in-between song patter and applause. There is even the odd cheer mid-song (Who doesn’t cheer when their home town is mentioned, of course?). The audience have either been expertly muted in the mixing of the album or they are just incredibly polite, but given that all the songs were recorded in Canada that could actually be the case. It could also be, (and probably is the case), that City And Colour’s music and performance live is that awe-inspiring that you would feel like the worst person on the planet if you were to be the one person that made a noise during the songs. Tracks such as ‘If I should Go Before You’, ‘Paradise’ and ‘We Found Each Other in the Dark’ are so perfectly suited to this type of performance and Green’s vocals are utterly flawless. It is also good to hear Green giving something of an explanation as to the origins of some of the tracks, in a kind of Canadian Tom Waits style. The music is always beautifully crafted and sincere to the point where you forget that Green is also a pretty funny guy and a good raconteur. I really enjoyed that these parts were left in. The heartfelt lyrics and openness of the writing is given a perfect platform. It has always been heart on sleeve music, and, in a way, this stripped back approach harks back to how City and Colour first came about .which was basically as an intensely raw and emotional collection of songs written by one person with his guitar and a notebook. It’s outlet music, music that perfectly captures a moment or time. Old favourites like ‘Comin’ Home’ and ‘Casey’s Song’ sound fantastic and dare I say even better than they do on the original recordings. ‘Comin’ Home’ has the added bonus of Green going into the chorus of his other band Alexisonfire’s ‘This Could Be Anywhere’ to the audible delight of the audience. ‘The Girl’ is still about the sweetest love song out there and the goosebump-inducing ‘Sleeping Sickness’ is a fantastic way to end the album, which complete with clapping from the audience, wraps up a gorgeous album.

Track Listing:-