City of Glass – The Diving Bell

Stream – ‘Little shadows’

The parts of a city we’ll always love have a sound. We can’t call a city our own until it’s filled with our steps and memories.

Apart form the obviousness of the title, there’s indeed an urban landscape in this EP by City of Glass. There’s this echo and resonance that bangs against the walls, like the room where musical creations come to life.

There’s order, there’s electronic sounds mixed with the organic essence of conventional instruments, like a flawless picture of technology and living beings that coexist in a well- defined space.

This is definitely a soft part of the city, walking in the open air with grey skies and fine, contemporaneous architecture, having human voices with words and phrases talking about confusion, about how the word ‘forever’ is just a pipe dream, eventually accepting and desiring our own mortality.

It’s hard to find a place in the shelf of music genres for this band, as it can deliver ambient, synth styles, go from quiet to noisy with rock riffs, then coming back to the peace of a city sunset. I’d be lying if I try to. Sometimes there’s no reason to question music, it’s just about letting go and enjoy.

As I enjoy the four pieces of this The Diving Bell EP, it’s funny how indeed there’s the constant sound of bells, like a milestone to the song, appearing to lift it up, when the right moment to introspection comes to your mind.

These songs depict the part forgotten from a city, the one than involves souls and feelings, as this big monster threatens to devour them for us. ‘Little Shadows’, track 3, is like that resonance over a building made of glass and concrete, where the present takes place and gives birth to the past with every step forward. Maybe that’s the kind of shadows they refer to. The bass line in this one is just amazing, printing the image and voice of the stairs we may walk every day.

Vocals are the perfect description of a kind tone to say harsh words, floating in the air, then being trapped by our memories or the atmosphere of a garden… walking the night alone in a desert park with a broken heart (‘Control’).

This album goes just as quick as it comes, but offers a full gamut of feelings and colors to each track, providing little twists through guitars, or synths, where both guitar bass and drums (that may seem everything but will never speak of a basic riff) follow the traces of sharp notes.

This Vancouver based band offer their point of view of what a city feels like. It’s a combination of glamour, a blue landscape with certain air of discontent. It’s the heart of the city, the heart of every inhabitant, that little pounding voice that tries to escape from its crystal prison to remind us of the tender part of us, dimmed by the haunted room and walls of our routine.

Words: Tonan

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