City is an energy filled album done in an industrial metal style. The drums and guitar are quite intense throughout the album, with the guitar ranging from fairly low-key to overpowering. While the guitar playing isn't highly technical, it is consistent. However, on occasion the guitar degenerates into seemingly random noise; I found these sections to be fairly grating on the nerves. It doesn't happen often enough to make it unbearable though.. The throaty vocals are also well done, although at times it seems as though there is a conflict between the vocals and the band; almost as if the singer and the band aren't quite doing the same song. Again, this doesn't happen often enough to really degrade the quality of the music.
A lot of range is shown in this album with respect to the vocals: they go from mellow and melodious to a rapid, incomprehensible barrage (not unlike hardcore rap music), sometimes within the space of a single song! City also features some many cool samples. I personally enjoy a lot of sampling, other people may not. The samples are used sparingly and don't seem to be overdone at all.
The CD cover has a really intersting design on it. It looks like a blueprint for some sort of motor or something. Really techie. Adding to the oddness is a little "speak & spell" line at the end of the last track (for those of you unfamiliar, "speak & spell" was an electronic toy that produced the standard mechanical computer voices).
Overall this is a fairly good CD. The tracks are varied enough that there will most likely be something to your taste (if your tastes run to this style of music, of course). The songs on the latter half of the disc were a little better than on the first half. So again, if you're a fan of this style of music (which is truly a combination of a few) it's probably worth your time to give "City" a listen.
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