“I don’t want to be revolutionary; I’m just looking for the sweetest melody,” Dallas Green sings on the album midpoint ‘Commentators’. In part a statement against the likes of yours truly, these lyrics provide a, perhaps unintentional, summary of ‘The Hurry and the Harm’.
Dallas Green, the man behind the City and Colour moniker, has always had a penchant for a beautifully catchy melody. What began as a side project to Alexisonfire took the tuneful elements of the band’s output and stripped it right back. ‘Sometimes’ became an album to define a generation of post-hardcore lovers who couldn’t get enough of the soulful voice; and rightly so.
Over time, City and Colour has delved deeper into the traditional acoustic waters. The highly regarded ‘Bring Me Your Love’ began to inject country and folk elements into the guitar mastery. Yet from that point on, Green has struggled to match the high points of his first two albums.
Similarly to ‘Little Hell’, every track on ‘The Hurry and the Harm’ is formed upon a cleverly simple melody. The self-titled opener places proceedings at a steadily calm pace, pushing Green’s ethereal vocals to the immediate focal point. Nothing much changes from here on in.
The faster paced moments speed the formula up, but do nothing to diverge from it. ‘Thirst’ sounds like this album’s ‘Fragile Bird’, while the verses on ‘Harder than Stone’ may well have been penned in John Mayer’s notebook.
Predictably, the highlights are found in the gentle delivery of the haunting ballads; ‘Two Coins’ and ‘Take Care’ display Green as his most vulnerable, while closer ‘Death’s Song’ add string instruments to intensify the already heightened emotions.
Whatever the pace, everything on the record works. Green’s vocals are wearily beautiful, and the compositions are expertly crafted, borrowing from a range of Americana based genres. It does not develop upon ‘Little Hell’, however the aforementioned highlights hark back to the ingenuity of ‘Bring Me Your Love’.
As Green implies on ‘Commentators’, ‘The Hurry and the Harm’ is crammed with sweet melodies, many of them growing in quality on repeated listen, but those looking for a musical revolution may be dissapointed. Whether a revolution is necessary when the album is filled with these intermittent moments of sheer beauty is up to you.
BEN TIPPLE