CITY AND COLOUR: HELL AND BACK |

I never paid much attention to Dallas Green’s solo endeavours as City and Colour; I guess I always assumed it was just an attempt to escape the imposing limits of the “screamo” genre he inhabits as a member of Alexisonfire. And this may be true. I neglected, however, to pay attention to what Green was actually trying to say with these efforts, and that was a mistake.

Musically Little Hell, Green’s third studio release as City and Colour, has come a long way, re-introducing percussion, electric guitar, and vocal harmonies (courtesy of guest musicians such as Daniel Romano, Dylan Green, Scott Remila, Nick Skalkos and Anna Jarvis) for a more complete sound. Even though he continues to work primarily with the acoustic ballad, there are a few efforts to introduce fuller, heavier numbers. The album is strongest when Green steps outside of this now-practiced acoustic vulnerability and tries his hand at something a little more invasive.

But it’s his subject matter that is most welcome. These aren’t plaintive cookie-cutter tracks about beautiful heartbreaking women or the high price of fame. Green delves much deeper than that. He cracks his chest open and invites you to poke at his deepest wounds and fears. His voice, like his lyrics, is vulnerable, economical, occasionally too soft perhaps, too open, but this only serves to underscore how honestly he communicates with his audience.

“Grand Optimist”, “O Sister”, and “Fragile Bird” all deal with the most painful parts of Green’s family history. In “Grand Optimist”, Green attributes his anxiety and personal decline to genetics: “I guess I take after my mother,” he croons, surrounded by a dark melody that settles over reverb-heavy vocals like a fog. “O Sister” returns to acoustic melodies and subtle vocal harmonies as Green expresses guilt for his absence his sister’s struggle with mental illness. And “Fragile Bird” juxtaposes a decidedly robust melody rich in bass, steel and percussion with the haunting memory of his wife’s night terrors.

There is also a turn inwards, an expression of Green’s own fears and anxieties. The album’s eponymous track reveals that the titular “Little Hell” can be nothing other than Green’s own mind, riddled with fears he has no choice but to expose and express in his music. The lyrics are honest and without ornament, rarely shrouded in metaphor. “What if I can’t be all that you need me to be?” he asks. “There’s a degree of difficulty in dealing with me.”

“Northern Wind” likewise expresses a fear of being left by the one he loves, and on the soaring “Weightless”, he expresses a desire to be free of the emotional burdens of others: “What makes your pain such an urgency?” he asks, the resounding wails underpinned by energetic bluesy riffs.

“Silver and Gold” is an example of Green’s ballad style at its best, the lyrics evoking a lush apocalyptic tableau: “Last night I dreamt that they dropped a bomb… And everything I loved and feared had all at once disappeared”. He envisions an antediluvian society where “silver and gold had lost all its worth”, an Edenic Year Zero where life can begin again.

It’s not a particularly uplifting album. There are no answers to these questions. But they’re beautifully posed, and they pertain to the listener as much as they do to Green. It gives each of us something to grasp at or something to ponder. A descent into the little Hell we each have at our core.

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Pros: Fuller sound, emotional depth, excellent production

Cons: Too many ballads