As Cities Burn prove they have what it takes to stand in this world come Hell Or High Water.
Posted by The Skyliner on April 29th, 2009Trey Lancaster
Staff Writer
While the future of the somewhat dormant Mandeville, Ala.-based band As Cities Burn is unknown, one thing is known, ACB pulls out a whole new sound on the new album Hell Or High Water. This is As Cities Burns’ third full length release and is completely different than both of their other albums.
Their first album, “Son, I Love You At Your Darkest” was a good mix of indie rock and post-hardcore. Two years after the release and touring in support of that album, vocalist T.J. Bonette decided to leave the band for personal reasons. After his departure from the band, brother and guitarist Cody Bonette stepped up to take over all vocal responsibilities while still doing guitar work as well.
In 2007 the band released their second album Come Now Sleep, which was a unique blend of indie rock with some post rock at times and still a few of those post-hardcore elements from the first album. That brings us to the here and now, Hell Or High Water.
Hell Or High Water is so different from anything this band has put out before, but not in a bad way at all. It is musical fusion of blues, jazz and indie rock and in a few tracks, though very subtle, you can still hear some of their post-hardcore roots. The tone of the guitars and the structure of the guitar work is undoubtedly heavily blues influenced. This can be seen best on the tracks “Petty” and “Daughter.”
“Petty” is one of my favorite tracks on this album. The song deals with shedding your pride and it talks about those who claim to stand for something just for the fame.
Another lyrically rich track is “Made Too Pretty,” which deals with vanity and not taking joy in what God has created. “And if we are the body, how’d the pretty man get so ugly? How’d he get all these spaces between each limb? And if there is one thing bigger than my head, that’s the distance I’ve been mislead.” These are my favorite couple of lines from this album. I see so many people caught up with vanity, and Cody hits the nail on the head with this song.
Another awesome thing about this album is that former vocalist T.J. Bonette still makes two appearances on this album. He does the screams on “84 Sheepdog” as well as the screams and some singing on the iTunes exclusive bonus track “Gates.” It’s awesome getting to hear T.J. again, because his raw and emotionally charged vocals were my favorite thing about As Cities Burn before he left the band.
As Cities Burn is one of the fewinventive major label bands out there and they proved it once again. A unique blend of blues, jazz, indie rock, and even some post-hardcore makes this album one to check out. And as I mentioned at the open of this review, the future of this band is not know. There are rumors floating around that this album marks the end of As Cities Burn because they don’t have any tours or CD release shows booked in support of the album, but as you know, rumors are sometimes just rumors. So regardless of the future of this band, checking out this album would be wise and if you like what you hear, I would highly recommend picking it up at your local Best Buy or record store.