City and Colour are a moody bunch. Their album, Little Hell is a slowly churning, dreary eyed record that wearily maneuvers its way through the eleven songs that make it up. Residing somewhere between folk rock and manic depression City and Colour are as bleak as their native Canada is in January.
With brooding guitars, plucked acoustics, and a really downtrodden vocal approach, it's hard to see this bunch as optimistic. The whole feel of Little Hell is something out of a post-grunge, post Mother Love Bone nightmare that refuses to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They could be singing about flowers, rainbows, and love but you would never know it by the pacing, down tuning, and overwhelming sense of gloom that surrounds this Little Hell.
If this record would have come out in 1992, I probably would have loved it's grimness but now in my "old" age, I need some affirmation rather than a Little Hell. If you like moody, unstable rock with a side order of desperation you'll absolutely love City and Colour and their little slice of hell.
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