PLAYING DEAD

With Phill Allen joining as a full member of the band on guitar, Citizen Cain are able to offer up a somewhat more intricate offering on Playing Dead than they did on the preceding Raising the Stones, which saw them exploring a (comparatively) stripped-down sound having to act as a duo. One of my recurring complaints about the group has been that Cyrus' vocals have been a bit ham-fisted - OK, sure, it's an uncannily close imitation of Peter Gabriel from his Genesis period, but it's mostly been in one particular mode and has lacked subtlety in the past.

Here, Cyrus takes a more rounded approach to things (though with occasionally poor mixing decisions leaving Cyrus' calmer moments somewhat drowned out by the music), pointing to a perhaps more well-rounded direction for Citizen Cain in the future. Whilst I'd say it still doesn't hit the peak of Somewhere But Yesterday overall, the compositions are becoming more intricate again, which helps create a sense of development and progression over Raising the Stones, and by building on that foundation the band manage to be less slavishly imitative of Genesis whilst still using those Genesis ideas which work well in context.