Living in the Citay

a painter's lazy review of premodern rock piece

The grammar will be offf, the effort marginal - I am now working manual labor.

I have a story for you all, however, one truly relevant to this great album, citay's self-titled debut (though more like a side project of Ezra Feinberg and Tim Green). In late March of second semester, I had returned home from Mizzou for spring break '06 sponsored by Girls Gone Wild. Late in the week I was going to visit my friend at Loyola, so I took the hour train ride from the suburbs to the citay (this play won't get old!). Browsing through my ipod, I wanted to hear something that I had not yet given full attention to. The touch browser stopped at Citay.

The album begins with such a familiar sounds. Strumming acoustics and droning southern rock guitar chords slowly advance like a trickle of water before the dam breaks. The vocals sound like they are being whispered in a bathroom shower, taking a back seat to the wonderful instrumentals.

At the front of this album's exploration is the acoustic guitar. Citay takes the dark mood and elements of 70's rock bands Led Zeppelin among others and strip away the distortion, without it losing any less edge. Nice Cuffs is the standout track for me, starting off with light strums on the acoustic, before stalling and falling off. A sudden explosion of winds and electric guitars and drums break forward into the song and never looks back.

Citay has is very much like the myriad bands looking backwards to try and find out how to go forwards. However, the refreshing spin of looking at 70's rock instead of 80's overdone post-punk scene makes the album wonderfully fresh and new sounding.
-B-