Spiked indie
aCivilian is the project of Norfolk based musician Phil Critten, it's essentially an album of indie tunes, with varying degrees of other genres spiked in, creating quite a varied record which doesn't always hit the spot but sometimes surprises you in a good way.
The album brings to mind many different bands, ranging from the heavy alt-rock of McLusky and yourcodenameis:milo to the quirk-pop of The Divine Comedy and the fuzzy-indie-pop of Thermals, Critten packs in a lot of ideas here. The more indie leaning tunes are generally the least memorable, take 'Look What Killed The Master & His Men' and 'The Same Hands' which despite some tuneful moments and interesting riffs somehow don't stick with you for long afterwards, perhaps it's their length or the dreamy quality to the production.
The best tracks are the grittier, more rocky numbers like opener 'Cheat' which momentarily gives the impression that the album will be quite a heavy affair; distorted guitar sounds, a solid danceable beat with strong vocals breaking down into a scream at the end. Then after a few poppy and more straightforward indie tunes, we are hit with 'These Friends', a real corker of a track which brings to mind The Thermals straight away and where everything comes together perfectly and you can really hear the possibilities; great riffs, compulsive beats and distortion on the nicely melodic vocal line. This is arguably the best track on the album.
While there are some really great moments here, because every track isn't an immediate winner, the tendency is for your attention to wander which isn't ideal. I'd still recommend tracking down at least those stand out tracks on "Invention" as they really hit the spot.