City Sleeps is an alternative rock band from Atlanta, ‘Not An Angel’ is the bands début album and was released through Trustkill Records in November 2007. The band blends rock elements with post-hardcore tinges also, the sound created here is quite bouncy and melodic; the guitar work is strong and the bands choruses always are highly infectious. Thirteen tracks are present here and this therefore provides for forty minutes of music.
Although this album is fun and there is no denying that City Sleeps is a band that possesses great talent; I have one main complaint with this album in that the sound created here has been done a million times before. There are plentiful amounts of guitar hooks, the choruses are well sung out, and every track has an absolutely excellent melody; as you listen to this album you get a severe feeling of deja vu however as the bands sound really is extremely generic. The songs all sound fairly similar, all following the same melodic rock formula and therefore providing for a supremely unspectacular overall listening experience. It’s all been done before, and it’s been done better by other artists too. City Sleeps sound like a slightly more instrumentally hard hitting American version of Busted.
‘Just Another Day’ is I feel the best track that this album has to offer, it’s a strongly constructed musical piece in all areas and the guitar work most definitely is highly impressive here. The vocals are as excellent as ever and the chorus really has quite a bite about it which really is excellent to hear. This I believe is the best track of the bunch, all of the other songs sound pretty similar but this is the best one of the lot. ‘Bones’ is another hugely hard hitting crunching rock track from this album; the drumbeats are highly powerful and at times the vocal tone taken here escalates into a generic post-hardcore scream. The music of City Sleeps is highly contrived, it’s fun to listen to but nothing at all new.
The best way to describe the music of City Sleeps would definitely be to say that the vocal sound is very similar to that of Busted, and that the instrumental element is not too different either. The instrumental side of things is a little more powerful perhaps, the vocal performance isn’t however and if anything then Busted is actually the vocally edgier of the two artists.
If you like the idea of a not so impressive American Busted then this ‘Not An Angel’ album should be one that shall appeal. This is certainly no great album, the choruses are fun enough to sing along to however and the melodious nature of the music is always quite impressive. Busted’s ‘A Present For Everyone’ is an album which possesses an extremely similar sound, if given a choice between ‘A Present For Everyone’ and City Sleeps’s ‘Not An Angel’ however then I’d pick the Busted album every time without any hesitation whatsoever.
‘Not An Angel’ is an album which is worth listening to in full at least once, it’s not fantastic but if you listen to the album from start to finish then you’ll be able to pick out your favourite tracks and then in the future be able to ignore all the others. This emo tinged rock release is no genre defining album, it is however one that is fairly entertaining to listen to from time to time.
Label: Trustkill Records
Release Date: November 19th 2007
Rating:
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
