Driving on City Sidewalks is a Canadian duo who play a heartbroken strain of indie post-rock, with a few heavy nods to folk. This five-song EP begins with "To Finish the Race," which has instrumentals heavily ripping off The Appleseed Cast. This band uses simple and slow vocal patterns, drawing out every lyric with a melancholy tone in this particular song.
The guttural screams used on the title-track are misplaced and unnecessary, but luckily only last for one chorus. The acoustic "Tear, Repair" shows us a country-folk side to the duo, but the vocals sound a bit cheesy, reminding me of The Spill Canvas a bit. At nine minutes, the last track is a full dive into spacey post-rock, and is structured quite well for a song of that length. What I first wrote off as completely corny turned out to be a decent effort despite some glaring imperfections. I'm not likely to follow this group, but if they focused on the right aspects of their sound, they could get somewhere.
