Album Review: Sound The City - In This Moment

Drunk girls, pretty girls, parties and “getting out of this town”, all staple topics in most young pop rock or pop punk bands. Arizona three piece Sound The City are having another crack at them with their third EP In This Moment. The result is a collection of mid tempo pop rock tunes that put them more in line with The Maine than a band like Hit The Lights.

A bluesy riff kicks off 'Life of the Party', one of the EP’s better tracks. Telling the well worn story of a Lindsay Lohan style party girl, the song makes decent use of the keyboard and the guitar riff that answers vocalist Michael Amorosia’s “Tell me what you want girl” is undeniably catchy. 'Moment' sounds exactly like a song by The Maine, just sung in a lower register. It is chirpy and poppy, yet it lacks energy and sounds better in its acoustic version. This lack of energy seems to affect 'Ryan’s Song' as well, which feels like it never really gets going. The elements are there but the end result feels somewhat pedestrian. This problem is not evident in 'Lush' which steps the tempo up a notch, and sounds much better for it.

'Love Like That' shows the band trying something a little different, slowing things down and pushing the guitars to the background, letting the drums and vocals do the talking. However the vocals are ruined by overuse of the auto tune effect. It is a baffling choice, as the song shows Amorosia’s range and includes a verse of decent female vocals and reduces them to a slurring mess. The other tracks mostly dispense with this nonsense, and despite the awful title 'Scene U Around' is a very competent track. Making full use of synths and background chanting, it is an upbeat and fun number.

But on the whole 'In This Moment' feels like it needs an extra bit of kick for it. Too many of the songs suffer from being uninteresting, some might find Amorosia’s vocal delivery difficult to get used to, and 'Love Like That' is just plain bad. This doesn’t mean Sound The City is a bad band, as 'Life of the Party' and “Lush” are actually pretty good pop rock tunes. It just feels like there is something missing that would take them to the next level. For now 'In This Moment' can be a fun listen in parts, but it is instantly forgettable.

2.5/5

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Jamie Kirk