In their defence, About This City have only been going since May this year.
Sadly that’s the only good thing I can say about this EP. I don’t take much pleasure in dismantling a band, but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. And this EP is most certainly cruel.
The band play a kind of poppy indie-rock which drifts along a little aimlessly. The vocals are sub-standard, the backing vocals tuneless and dire and must be stopped immediately if the band want to progress. The guitars are OK but sound a little weedy, there’s little to no bass in the mix and the drums simply plod along. And that’s just my summary of ‘No More Lies’. ‘These Boys’ sounds like it’s being sung by a poor Morrissey impersonator and again just drifts along pretty aimlessly. There’s some really weird, annoying high bits in the vocals during the choruses, like a little yelp. They hurt my ears.
The best, constructive advice I can give is to get back to the drawing board. I don’t see where About This City fit, genre-wise. It’s like a mish-mash of different styles but done really weirdly. The backing vocals are just terrible and not needed, the lyrics sound like they were written by a GCSE English student and the overall song structures are messy. Practice, practice, practice – a band that’s only six months old shouldn’t be disheartened but encouraged to get writing more, and better, songs before they record anything else.