City Of Lights - Don't Give Up

City of Lights – Don’t Give Up

Leeds based pop-rock band City of Lights recently wowed us at their show in Hull (19^th May 2013) so we purchased their CD to give it a blast, here is what we think of it!

The EP is 5 tracks long, or short depending on what type of person you are, it also includes two live recordings which I always say is a daring move and shows how confident a band or artist is in their live sound as you may come across a lot worse than you are recorded on a stage.

The EP kicks off with title track Don’t Give Up, which is an absolute belter on and off stage opening very energetically and enticing, drawing us in to the bands sound and showing just how beautifully brilliant they are, built up with very punchy, up-beat instrumental and lyrics that will have chanting along, everything a band needs to do right to draw in a listener is done in this track.

Milestone is the second track and continues the up-beat rhythm and brilliant lyrics that again will have you singing along, the band are highly capable of writing amazing songs that would not be out of place on the radio, it is surely only a matter of time before they become somewhat larger than they are, who knows if they keep this up they could easily break out of the local scene and on to larger things.

The rest of the EP follow suits really, This Isn't Easy is the third track and maintains the bands sound with the addition of a great little crowd interaction part, which we witnessed in Hull.

Wait For Me is the fourth track and first of the live recorded tracks, now like I said before putting live tracks in releases is a risky thing to do as it may not sound as perfect as you would like it to, but more often than not bands pull it off perfectly, and this is most definitely the case here with City Of Lights.

Did I Stutter is the final track, again live and again perfectly recorded and mastered and it really does reflect perfectly how brilliant the band are live, all in all they were an absolutely awesome find and shows that you really need to go out there and support local bands because most of the time they are brilliant at what they do.

Final Riff Rating: R R R R *Ones to watch*

-Adam