Album Review

City Reign – Another Step

• 18th Feb 2013

There’s a lot of buzz around Manchester indie band City Reign. Over the past two years they have released a couple of EPs and three singles to uniformly good reviews and also toured relentlessly. Now they release Another Step, the band’s full length debut, on their own Car Boot Records label and it marks City Reign as talented songwriters and musicians with a big future.

City Reign came about when the songwriting duo of Chris Bull and Mike Grice met at a Ryan Adams concert at the Manchester Academy. The two Londoners were still at university and formed City Reign in late 2008, the band name taken from the Adams’ song, ‘City Rain, City Streets’. Duncan Bolton on drums and Ryan Ashton on bass join the two founders in the four piece line up.

Another Step was recorded with producer Sam Jones (Band on the Wall, Alex Turner) in a Salford church. The trademark big guitar sound is amplified and echoes nicely to give a reverb heavy mix with crashing drums aplenty. But there are also subtle melodies and some nice lead guitar parts in the music along with the great hooks. And Chris Bull’s vocals are powerful yet melodic throughout, giving an anthemic sound that also has an intelligence to it.

The album comprises both previously released and new tracks, and there is a good variety within its eleven songs. Opening in anthemic fashion with Anchor, the guitars lead from the front with big riffs and a lovely hook both evident in the opening seconds. The superb Retaliate is a highlight, a slower and very emotional acoustic number recorded with a string quartet, and it stands out as much as some of the band’s more typical rock songs. And the debut single Making Plans has been re-recorded, giving it new authority as the vocals soar.

Daybreak is another older song, its bright and optimistic tone based around those treble heavy guitars, although the bass is more prominent than in most of the album, giving a deeper sound. See What It’s Worth features both relentless drums and some of the best lead guitar work on the album. Recent single Ahead Of Ideas tells of the highs and lows of life in a band in stirring fashion, the sound rising and falling throughout. And the closing Anywhere Anyway has a superb, powerful intro that comes close to heavy rock territory as the guitars scream over heavy drums.

City Reign have created a debut album that is complex and multi-layered with a great, clean sound. Their indie music has power aplenty but they do much more than simply create anthemic guitar music. There is a sophisticated edge to the album that elevates it well above the output of many current indie bands. The future looks bright for City Reign.

Venue: Another Step
Support Band: Car Boot Records