City and Colour is the side project of Alexisonfire‘s Dallas Green (whose name is a city and a colour…). I would say that switching from an aggressive ‘day job’ in AOF to an acoustic side-project was an odd choice, but then The Weakerthans and the former Botch project Roy show precadents have already been set. ‘Sometimes’ isn’t too bad – it’s certainly very, very different from AOF’s hardcore-lite material – but at times it does come across as predictable and boring.
Dallas does have quite a tender voice, which makes this kind of thing all the more believable. The problem I have with this CD is that it seems to go on forever – the middle portion is quite laborious – dragging this CD along and spoiling what, individually, are fantastic songs. ‘…off by heart’ and ‘save your scissors’ are lovely, both warm songs where you can sense Dallas’ vocal may crack at any time. But collectively these songs just don’t flow well. Whereas The Weakerthans had the knack to write brilliant records regardless of their other bands, Dallas doesn’t quite hit the target – and as a result, I fear he’s likely to be known as Dallas Green (also of Alexisonfire) rather than Dallas Green solo artist for the forseeable future.
www.myspace.com/dallasgreen
Sorepoint
Paul