Album Review: Casino City - Tripping On Cobbles

Being a new Scottish band in this day and age is a heavy burden considering the quality and general awesomeness of the recent generations. Casino City sell themselves as sporting an experimental electro-rock sound which is clear from their opener 'Tripping On Cobbles'. The track is an intro to the seven-song album and sounds, at first, like a faulty track until electronic beats and bobs unite to give it sense and take the first step into their sound.

'Losing Streak' kicks off with U2 style reverberated guitar and some The Who style cymbal crashings to great effect. The song plays itself on simple chord changes but begs to be played to huge stadiums, yet the vocals, while acceptable, don't quite fit the ambition of the song. 'Judas'' clean guitar sets the tone for a ballad that eventually powers itself into distortion but without ever feeling whole. The worst is, the vocals not only feel out of depth but sometimes flirt with being off-key.

Chorus flanged guitars and Led Zeppelin-like recording allows 'The Last Post' to raise my expectations before the lead vocalist breaks into a "let's get on a train into the sky", aping Oasis' biggest flaw. This time around, the guitar has a complete section of off-rhythm and the lead vocalist might well have recorded this drunk. Single 'Cobbles & Robbers' has synths and a decent attempt at a crunchy riff but they soon fall into a dancy mess framed in some shamelessly bad mixing. 'Get The Blues' is a punk rock heresy while closing track 'Choir Of The Demons' slightly reassesses my judgment as gang vocals are added in, and they add a little edge and sharpness that convince me that they may not be completely out of touch with the music world.

Casino City are a confusing bunch. If they are to promote themselves as experimental, then I would only willingly accept it if labeled to their inimitable lack of understanding of a successful recording process. The musicians aren't bad ones, they just let something go terribly wrong somewhere along the way.

1.5/5

'Tripping On Cobbles' by Casino City is available now.

Casino City on MySpace

James Berclaz-Lewis