Bring Me Your Love
City And Colour
2008

Snicker inducing titles aside, Dallas Green’s second full length solo effort is a step up from his last foray away from the St. Catherines, Ontario harcore / screamo act, Alexisonfire.

Where as City and Colour’s first album largely revolved around acoustic guitar with some backup piano, Bring Me Your Love injects a lot more variety and texture into the songs, thanks to more instrumentation and some assistance from Gordon Downie (The Tragically Hip) and a few of the boys from Attack in Black.

The lyrics can be a bit sentimental and squishy at times but also poignant, like Body In A Box which chimes in with “it’s like a man’s best party only happens when he dies” in between muted organ and harmonica notes. The composition of the songs in general are strong and varied, but strangely feel a little lacking in portions. Dallas has a great voice to be sure, but it would have been nice to hear a bit more variety in the vocal section considering the people he’s collaborating with. Sleeping Sickness features Gordon Downie’s distinct vocals, and while I know this is Dallas’s show, it would have been nice to hear more of The Hip’s front man singing through. Likewise, I know all the Attack in Black crew can sing because they proved it on their last album (The Curve of the Earth), so it’s a little odd to not even hear a recognizable peep out of them. You can really hear their influence on The Girl, likely one of the most stand out songs on the album, but it’s hard to recognize without pulling out the CD booklet and looking at the credits. Maybe it’s a good thing that they blend in so well, but it just feels like there could have been more.

All things considered, it’s a solid album and while it doesn’t do anything astounding, Bring Me Your Love is definitely worth checking out.

Watch Waiting… from City and Colour’s Bring Me Your Love:

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This Will Destroy You
This Will Destroy You
2008

For whatever reason, post-rock can be terribly depressing and often moves slower than a fat chick in gym class. Yet somehow, This Will Destroy You’s self titled full-length debut avoids all that in likely one of the best post-rock albums I’ve heard in years.

Much like Explosions in the Sky, they focus entirely on instrumentation with no vocals and a minimalist sound scape, but the comparison stops there. There is build up in these songs and they are not going to challenge Dragon Force for a speed record, but as far as post-rock goes, the precision and the focus this band exhibits really sets a new bar. Every song has it’s place, nothing sounds out of sync and while the songs compliment and flow into one another, nothing ever sounds repetitious or dull.

The recording itself is impeccable. With over-dubbed and audio loop happy bands like Radiohead drowning out the instruments in favour of dyslexic mumblings, it’s nice to actually hear musicians play. The guitars are thick and weighty, the drums are heavy and sharp and the occasional background texture is subtle and never overpowering. Everything is clear and crisp without exception.

Be forewarned, this album isn’t for the developmentally challenged that need every inch of audio punched to the nine, but with that in mind it still hits hard enough and does it frequently enough to make This Will Destroy You stand out from the pack. There’s no filler, no waste; just one of the best post-rock albums to come along in a very long time.

Stream A Three-Legged Workhorse, Threads and Burial On The Presidio Banks (myspace)

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