When The Appleseed Cast moved onto the post-rock path, it was as if they had always trodden it, and was the moment they became really quite interesting. It seems that Ontario’s Driving on City Sidewalks believe so too, as there is a massive influence from the Kansas four-piece’s more recent works on this 5 track EP, Where Angels Crowd to Listen. Never more evident than on opening track “To Finish The Race”. The track’s slow pace is set from the off with broody string picking, and vocals that sound like the result of way too much pot. It’s the closest they ever get to reaching The Appleseed Cast’s post-rock soundscapes, but even here they never quite manage it; they’re two or three notes shy of an arpeggio, and their vocals are two tones shy of making the singer sound interested.

The title track address’ these problems, but then creates entirely new ones all of its own, not least the pointless Tiamat impersonation that is supposed to pass as backing vocals, completely ruining the rather nice female backing vocals that also appear. Driving on City Sidewalks take a break from mimicking The Appleseed Cast on album centre piece, “Tear, Repair”, which starts off like an acoustic Modest Mouse, before venturing a little too closely to Jack Johnson [which nobody should ever do]!

The final two tracks bring them back to more familiar ground but “And Ever Since...” never really gets going from its promising start, and “Farewell to Knowing” takes far too long to do so [hardly surprising at over 9 minutes long].

Driving on City Sidewalk’s musical heroes returned today with their seventh album, Sagarmatha, to show exactly how it should be done. Whilst they were away, Driving on City Sidewalk’s should have crowded with those angels and listened more intently. The devil they were all looking for was definitely in the detail.

Track List:

1. To Finish the Race
2. Where Angels Crowd to Listen
3. Tear, Repair
4. And Ever Since...
5. Farewell to Knowing