Review Summary: woof
Remember when Citizen found their sound on
As You Please? Congrats if you do, because Citizen don’t. Marrying their early 2010s-RFC-emo sound with more meanderingly intense instrumentation was a golden move, but the band seemingly weren’t content and wanted to have some more fun - enter
Life In Your Glass World, a solid if unremarkable punk-dance-grunge-pop-whatever album. Now, two years later,
Calling the Dogs exists. For some reason.
To their credit, Citizen continue the trend of switching things up relatively drastically with each release. Unfortunately,
Calling the Dogs does so by presenting music that sounds like it should be fun, but just… isn’t. Songs mostly range from decently forgettable
Glass World b-sides (“Headtrip”, “Can’t Take It Slow”) to vapid pop rock tunes with hooks that are memorable for all the wrong reasons (“If You’re Lonely”, “Needs”). It’s almost impressive how few hooks actually stick the landing: on past releases the ever-broadening Mat Kerekes knew how to spin a memorable melody out of any awkward phrase, but fails to deliver anything catchy that doesn’t rely on trite repetition here. Moreover,
Calling the Dogs feels paper thin to the point where a singular Kerekes exhale would cause it to collapse in on itself. Having mostly stripped away all the grunge-isms from their sound (perhaps due Will Yip’s worrying absence), each riff feels like an afterthought; drums are simplistic to a fault; bass might be audible every once in a while if you’re lucky. Apparently the C in RHCP stands for Citizen, and other quips.
Thankfully,
Calling the Dogs isn’t all bad. “Lay Low” is an enjoyable cut for the sole reason that it makes the indie pop aesthetics feel energetic for once. Similarly, “Dogs” is an oddball track that reintroduces Citizen’s experimental tendencies to decent results. While these songs are
fine, they really only stand out in the context of the album - as a whole, this is the most tired, bored, and frankly pointless the band have ever sounded. No bark, no bite.
