Sick City - March/April 2008
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008Contact: Jason Smith, Smallman Artist Management, , 204-452-5627, www.sickcitymusic.com.
The members of Winnipeg’s Sick City spent three years together before releasing Nightlife, their first full-length album. To the band’s growing legion of fans, I’m sure that seemed like a long time – but it was time well spent.
Nightlife, recorded in Atlanta with Jimmy Eat World producer Zach Odom and Kenneth Mount at the console, comes across as the work of a band that has long since worked out whatever kinks there might have been at the beginning of this creative partnership and evolved into a very cohesive unit.
They write well together and deliver what they write with equal measures of passion, conviction, energy and enthusiasm. And what they write is a gritty, hard-assed brand of rock that is as melodic as it is in-yer-face.
And they are nothing if not adventurous.
Big riffs give way to lush strings and soft piano, which is in turn broadsided by big guitars, big bass, and big drums.
As strong as they are musically, they are even stronger vocally. Lead singer Josh Youngson pushes his voice so hard at times on this album that one wonders how he has any voice left at all. They’ve also got great vocal harmonies, used to good effect.
Youngson paid his dues with the Novella while bass player T.J Stevenson logged time with The Recovery. Drummer Joel Neufeld and both guitarists, Dorian Paszkowski and Dave Grabowski, came from, Fast Track, described in their bio as local skate punk heroes.
They seemed to gel almost from the beginning – within a year they were belting em’ out on the Warped Tour.
By the Fall of 2005 they’d already produced their first EP, a well-received effort that hinted favourably of what was to come.
Among the better offerings on this set: “XX & XY,†“Smiles & Cries,†“Tora, Tora My Dear Tora†and the title track.
Sick City - Turning Heads