City And Colour - Live

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 6 / 5 / 2007

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Review

City and Colour is the fantastic solo project of Alexisonfire guitarist and melodic voice Dallas Green. For those yet to catch up, Dallas = City, Green = Colour, just in case you ever wondered or were confused where he got the name from. While partaking in his day job Green provides Canada’s biggest selling hardcore band's lighter side with his swooning vocal which juxtapose with the screams and more cutting moments supplied by his bandmates. With City and Colour he gets the chance to make use of his unique voice. City and Colour, rather than being one big ego trip as so many side projects are, began because Green had written some songs over the years that never seemed to fit anywhere into what Alexisonfire were doing. After putting a few songs to tape Green unassumingly released the few songs as a limited EP thinking it would not meet a huge demand. After more and more people discovered his melodic side and superbly crafted tunes, demand grew so much that Green decided to do a full album, ‘Sometimes’. Again this was not thought to be a huge release, but in fact ended up exceeding all expectations not too mention winning several awards, and rightly so, partly due to the success of a single from it, the incredible ‘Save Your Scissors’, which blasted into the Canadian and North American charts. That song catapulted Green into the limelight for his own abilities, rather than just his association with his band. 'Save Your Scissors’ was a song that for the middle few months of 2006 you could not go a day's radio or music channel play without hearing in Canada, yet it NEVER got dull, boring or any less wonderful. While Alexisisonfire are in my mind amazing, and certainly one of the best heavy bands around at the moment, their blend of screamo, hardcore and punk does not always make then the most accessible, especially if you’re not au fait with these genres. Green has. however, bridged a huge gap with City and Colour. His soft voice, which could charm the pants of a nun, (although he’d probably be far too polite to admit this, let alone take advantage of such a situation), mixed with his beautifully constructed acoustic guitar work, has mass appeal. This was never the intention, but Green has produced a work that deserves to be heard by the masses. These are songs that will stop you in your tracks and make you cease whatever you are doing because you have to hear them. Heartfelt songs such as ‘Forgive me’, ‘Like Knives’ and ‘Confessions’ about love, loss and all that goes with it and the likes of ‘Coming Home’ the sound of one man's yearning to get back to the person who means the most to him in the entire world, are all tracks that could only be made by someone who is writing from the heart. City and Colour is raw and honest, and this live album catches that perfectly. You can hear the applause in between songs but you can also sense the intensity and full attention, which is afforded Green by the crowd in his presence. The best known songs on here such as ‘Save Your Scissors’ and ‘Casey’s Song’ sound perfect in a live setting and ‘Sam Malone’, which I had never taken much notice of on the album, sound simply sublime and every bit as powerful as on 'Sometimes'. With the occasional piano or string backing Green's vocals and guitar this really is a minimal recording which in the live setting almost does more justice to the artist and to the strength of the songs as the original album. With only a couple of different tracks to the album and a piano-led version of the Alexisonfire song ‘Happiness Kilowatt’ along with a Live DVD, this would serve perfectly as introduction to City and Colour. The beauty of City and Colour and this heartfelt collection of songs is that these tracks will undoubtedly have many meanings to many different people out there. We all go through things and have feelings, and the beauty of music this deep is that it has the ability to become your own personal soundtrack to whatever it may be that you are going through. I can not recommend this highly enough.

Track Listing:-

1 Forgive Me (Previously Unreleased)
2 Comin' Home
3 Like Knives
4 Sam Malone
5 Day Old Hate
6 Confessions (Previously Unreleased)
7 Save Your Scissors
8 Casey's Song
9 Sometimes (I Wish)
10 Happiness By The Kilowatt (Alexisonfire Cover)
11 Comin' Home (Alternate Performance)
12 Save Your Scissors (Alternate Performance)
13 Sensible Heart (Previously Unreleased)

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