Acoustic Roots One - City and Colour - Bring Me Your Love

Dallas Green, aka City and Colour (get it!?), has released his second album “Bring Me Your Love”. Much anticipated since his debut album “Sometimes”, Dallas’ second instalment has showed us another, much more folk orientated side to the Alexisonfire front man.

Green’s foundations for “Sometimes” were with piano and guitar but now he’s thrown in harmonica, banjo, organ and more drums to produce an album that gives a noticeable tip of the hat in the direction of artists like Dylan.

A few tracks are a throw back to his debut with songs like “Sensible Heart” showing his sad simple tone, however, this album shows a side to Green which isn’t afraid to reveal his roots aside from his obvious hardcore / emo interests.

Green got together with fellow Canadian Gordon Downie (The Tragically Hip) to sing on the track “Sleeping Sickness” and both, despite their differing styles, convey the song beautifully. My personal favourite from the album is the last track “As Much As I Ever Could” which begins slowly and gracefully with harmonised vocals and carries the lyrics “Bring Me Your Love” in the chorus.

It was because of Green that I found Alexisonfire accessible as his truly amazing voice has the ability to go from a quiet reserved sound to a massive booming noise with a huge range of notes being struck perfectly. His ability on the guitar cannot be doubted as he proves that men can multi-task with some quite technical fretting.

Dallas Green is undoubtedly one of the best singers in the metal scene and “Bring Me Your Love” is an album which is thought provoking and (for want of a better word) emotional, not in the emo sense, but more in the sense that despite the lyrics being quite simple it still manages to tug at the ol’ heart strings.

You can find some of the tracks on Myspace Transmissions.

Enter Shikari... Really?

Everyone has heard of the ol' Enter Shikari so there's no point in delving into who they are. However there is a point to be made with their most recent single - We Can Breathe In Space.

The very start is reminiscent of the synth used in take to the skies but when the rhythm and vocals kick in it quickly classifies the song as mediocre pop.

There was a certain raw feel to this band on the Sorry Your Not... EP but now, and even with Take to the Skies, it seems to be heading for a sound more quaint with selling as many singles as possible.

It sounds overproduced with vocals that have been incredibly tweaked, as opposed to the earlier material which had forceful screaming and made more use of guitar melodies. It seems that Shikari seem to be branching off into something that will alienate fans who were with them from the early underground days. Whether this is a shame is for you to decide, however, I was looking forward to something with a bit more balls like the early releases of O.K. Time For Plan B.

Overall, poor attempt. I say we send them in to space and see if they can actually breathe?