City Band - City Band LP

Expanding the grounds of the “jangle underground Internationale”™, City Band hail from the big smoke of Paris. Taking cues from The Feelies, but not as tightly wound or mid-era Go-Betweens but not as baroque, there’s also the familiar interwoven guitar interplay of more contemporary Australian groups like Twerps or The Ocean Party.

I don’t speak French but I get the sense that City Band’s lyrics don’t come off as breezy and lackadaisical as their Antipodean counterparts. There’s something darker and more existential or introspective here: vocals are lower down in the mix and the recording doesn’t have the pop sheen of so many other groups who play in this vein.

Maybe I’m just projecting some Francophile idea of what I imagine what DIY/underground music is like in Paris, but it seems that City Band are one of the more intriguing groups chipping away at the edges of the chiming guitar thing.
-Mitch

Art by Hendrik Hegray.