SOUND BITES

CITY AND COLOUR Thirst From: The Hurry And The Harm Released: June 4 As the former side project (and now main gig) of Dallas Green, City And Colour was always sort of intended to act as the antithesis of Alexisonfire, a pensive and sensitive chaser to AOF's raw, furious attack. Now that Alexisonfire is no more, there are more rock elements creeping into City And Colour; see the fuzzed-out groove of lead single Thirst . Giving its tender core a little more muscle works to its advantage, and I hope Dallas continues to explore these sounds on future recordings.

Click here to go to iTunes and stream City And Colour's The Hurry And The Harm . I've never been that big a fan of Dallas Green's solo work. It's not that I was that big a fan of Alexisonfire's work, but more a case of finding City And Colour's albums to be overly dull thanks to the predominance of acoustic guitars and slow tempos. Over the course of three albums, though, Green has been slowly introducing more (pun intended) colour to his musical palette. Whether it's the weeping slide backdropping the title track, the stabbing organ-punctuated groove of Thirst or the light strings on Two Coins , it's clear that C&C has added some new machinery in his music factory. On The Hurry And The Harm , the listener still gets a good dose of the acoustic ballads that enamored longtime fans to City And Colour in the first place. However, there's a surprising level of variety spread across the disc's dozen tracks. Most tracks on this album benefit ...