Cities To Drown In

When enough downtime was found away from the guitar and screaming duties as front-man in Gaffer, Cameron MacDonald managed to venture to London, ON, to Andy Magoffin's House of Miracles studio to capture (with amazing clarity) his pop sensibilities into an outfit known as Cities To Drown In. The album is a passionate and beautiful "across the spectrum” portrayal of what makes a great pop song, from folk melodies, à la Brian Wilson, to the dirtier discordant influences of Chris Cornell. The honesty factor is set on raw and high, most evident with MacDonald's uniquely non-nasal, "singing from the pituitary gland” vocal chords, which always seem to be in the midst of tuning themselves during each track, in a postmodern Bob Dylan kind of way. Musically, the affair is loose (somewhat like the Royal City tip that everyone seems to be going on these days) and the cello, guitar, drums and so on make the severe amount of "effort” put into this album sound extremely audible. It might take a few listens for maximum pleasure to grow upon the listener, but the results are well worth it in the long run.