Release Show: 11/22/13 – Citizen Smile’s Everything’s Changing And Nothing
Local quartet Citizen Smile rip open most of their riffy power-ballads with proto-pop-rock gusto, sustained through 3 minutes of jogging rhythms while nifty, fx-fogged guitars swoop and soar, often crashing down between the choruses for some brutishly-cool, shredded crescendos. But, for every two trouncers you get on Everything, there’s a softer, tempered ballad that comes along to smooth things out. For as crazily space-rock-splashy they get, they often pull it back during the softer bridges. And it’s there, when boisterousness turns to poignancy, where the the lyricist, keeping at a smooth mid-high tone sounding palpably ponderous of all the weightier issues of, ya know, everything in life, can show off his coming-of-age poetics that could fit nicely over the closing credits of your next 20-something-demographed indie-dramaedy playing at the art house.
Citizen Smile performs November 22 at the Loving Touch (22634 Woodward Ave, Ferndale) . Opening up this CD Release show is Haunted House and the Ill Itches. 8pm FREE 21+
This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2013.
