More City Sadness

Album Review

His first release and an excellent document of his unique style in embryo, More City Madness presents Craig Bennett with an impressive grasp of his pop songwriting muse, even at this early stage in his progression. Already an incredibly descriptive songwriter with odd lyrical couplets and strange phrasing creating an almost beat poetry feel to some of the tracks, Bennett's pairing of anomalous narratives is matched by his loosely unraveling musical aesthetic. But even as the lyrics often don't rhyme or seem to be logically connected, his songwriting vision generally doesn't suffer at all, as the mood set by the lyrics creates the perfect setting for his world of lonely poets and fashion models. His arrangements, although complex compared to those on later albums, are slightly less moody than they would be in a few years, with acoustic guitar and organs mixing with the occasional horn for a warmer mix than the chilly atmospheres on his later work. Further, his melodic sense is as well developed as his blunt poetic sense. Overall, it may not be as uniformly solid as his later albums, but as debuts go, this one fits very well within the arc of this artist's career trajectory.