THECITYISOURS: A New Dawn, A New Energy
Touring again after the global dumpster fire of COVID-19 is going to be an odd experience for every single band, but when you’re doing so with a brand new vocalist, the strangeness can be turned up a couple of notched. THECITYISOURS, a London-based melodic metalcore outfit, found themselves in exactly this position when they set out in September opening for OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME, with Oli Duncanson taking up mic duties after replacing Sam Stolliday and, to add a further twist, with new songs from second album Coma in the setlist as well
“It was an interesting scenario because the rest of us have toured a lot and are relatively au fait with what that world is like, but this time the set was completely different, the band members were different and there was a real nervous energy about the whole thing,” confirms guitarist and secondary vocalist Mikey Page. “THECITYISOURS is at its most authentic in live scenario – that’s what we are about – but the first show in Bristol was such a weird experience for us. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time, the crowd was amazing and, being the first one, it had its own charm, but I think everyone was still kinda apprehensive going into it. But our confidence built after that show was out the way and by the time we got to Leeds four days later, the rest of the tour was mental.”
For so many bands within the melodic metalcore scene, producing good music is one side of the coin, but the other is performing in a manner that gets every person in that audience feeling the intention behind every note and syllable – THECITYISOURS are no different. “We want every single person in the room at a live show to experience the best possible, 30, 45, 60 minutes, however long we’re doing, through us,” explains Mikey. “We are the vessel of that cathartic feeling in my mind. We’ve always written songs to try and be empathetic towards the way other people feel through our own experience. Whether we’re the heaviest band on the bill or seen as a pop band with heavy guitars, we just want to connect with the audience.”
For Oli, this wasn’t just his first set of live shows with THECITYISOURS, it was his first set of live shows full stop, and he’s understandably a little overwhelmed when asked about how he found it all; less on an emotional level, more that he doesn’t quite know what to say. Mikey, however, sums it up beautifully. “It’s impossible to explain the feeling of people singing your lyrics that you’ve written back to you; it’ll never get old. It doesn’t matter if it’s five people in some little back room of a pub or five thousand, that feeling of people investing in what you’re doing is immense. Oli has seen that countless times, probably more than the rest of us with all the touring, he’s done with other people for his job, but he’s never had it from the other side of the fence. I’m quite jealous he’s been able to do that for the first time because I can’t experience it again!”
With the tour over, THECITYISOURS’ focus now moves to Coma, their sophomore album out towards the end of October. There’s often a lot of talk of a band’s second record as being the ‘difficult one’, but Mikey doesn’t seem fazed by that; quite the contrary. “The first album (2019’s Low), was a case of putting together the songs that had been on EP’s or left over from them and it was done in sections until an album was there. This time we were focused on it being a whole album, and the main thing we wanted to be authentically us like before but push that even further.”
“I think that the result of that is the heavy element of our band has definitely become heavier – some of the tracks like Barely Alive are at the more brutal realms of what we do, but we’re not here pretending to be a really heavy band because we’ve got sing-along choruses that brings in a pop element, and as we were wondering how these would marry up, we came to the decision to just write and record the songs as they came out.”
This honest and raw approach THECITYISOURS took to Coma has paid off – it’s a corker of a record with hooks and breakdowns for days, bolstered of course by those massive choruses that will have no trouble sticking in your head for eternity. When they get back to their second home of the stage, only a fool would miss a show on tour. Keep up this trajectory and it could be OUR HOLLOW, OUR HOME opening for them instead soon…
COMA is out now via Arising Empire.
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