Citay Little Kingdom by: Justin Pearsall Mon:10-Sep-07 Label: Dead Oceans Year: 2007 WB rating 71 out of 100

Hard Rock may be the most maligned genre going around. Once the chosen categorisation for revolutionaries such as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and The Who (early terminology even referencing The Kinks with the power-chord heavy ‘You Really Got Me’), recently the genus has been crippled via a flood of wafer-thin imitators. Lead by the hideously bad Nickelback and Hinder, Hard Rock has now come to surmise all that is base, leading even commercial pop in its music-by-numbers approach.

In 2006 Citay’s self-titled debut rejected the here-it-is stupidity of this recent Hard Rock scene, distinguishing itself with dynamic and left-of-centre arrangements that owed a far greater debt to Led Zeppelin’s folk offerings than the more manic contributions indicative of the genre. As such, the term Hard Rock was a clumsy pigeonholing of a band whose true strength was found in subtlety, arrangement excellence and a delicacy more typically credited to folk music.

As a follow up to this debut, Little Kingdom is a natural development, refining and honing certain elements of the band’s sound in favour of others, these changes further distancing them from the misplaced ‘Hard Rock’ tag. More instrumentally daring, with added space and even less vocals than its already sparse predecessor, Little Kingdom is a stronger realisation of band leader Ezra Feinberg’s ambitions, a crisper, more dynamic and consistent effort. However, the main advancement is undoubtedly Citay’s newly refined production, which empowers the classic rock elements at the heart of their sound, creating a rich, modern sheen, lessening any potential arguments about pure imitation.

While it is hard to separate the record’s eight songs, each is complimentary and integral to the mood of the album, the opening track ‘First Fantasy’ is a particular highlight. Stretching from ambience to psychedelia, with folky acoustic underpinnings and reverb-drenched harmonies resembling those of Arthur and Yu’s latest, In Camera, it sets the tone for what is an open and inviting listen. Implicit in these lush soundscapes is a rejection of Citay’s metal-inspired guitar noodling, which inflicted tracks like ‘Vinter’ and harked back to the bad days of soloing for its look-at-me status. With tracks like ‘First Fantasy’ and ‘On the Wings’, the latter consisting of a restrained, motif-heavy blues solo, it is clear that Citay have matured, what they have abandoned in virtuosity they have gained in warmth and brilliance.

While Little Kingdom is a distinct and impressive step forward, especially considering only a year has passed since the release of the debut, there is a sense that this is not the complete fruition of all that Citay can be. The record’s meandering quality ensures that songs flow together, fashioning a coherent and welcoming sound, yet at times this very quality creates a lackadaisical sameness, which is at its most problematic on slow moving instrumentals like ‘A Riot of Colour’ and ‘Last Days Last’.

This criticism only slightly detracts from what is overall a very strong follow up album. And while there are definitely elements of Led Zep’s folkier side and other progressive borrowings from the general Hard Rock lexicon, the style and lustre with which Citay deliver these influences make their sound quite removed from these comparisons. Whether the band are still pigeonholed in this Hard Rock category is essentially irrelevant anyway, Little Kingdom is a successful album, one that rises above any easy generalisation, achieving this with a relative ease that makes it widely enjoyable and rewarding even for those who may be thrown off by the ‘Hard Rock’ tagging.