Now, if you were to look and listen to these boys at first it’d be hard to recognise that they are Liverpudlian and this I love. Over the past few articles I’ve tended to scream and shout about how Northern bands are ‘repping’ the North and how great it is but to be honest, it gets a bit old after a while. Dead Cities prove that you don’t have to always stay true to your regional heritage in order to make good music and be recognised. It’s refreshing to stumble upon (not through that god awful website but literally) a band that’s subtley accomplished and nonchalant about their underground success, which is inevitably going to expand outside of Liverpool.
For Dead Cities, the Groundhog Day feeling of the modern lifestyle mixed with dissatisfaction generally provides much material for lyrics that a feeling of the mundane mixed with an unrelenting optimism. Songs such as ‘Old Man’ with its bold drums and waltz rhythms which leads to an explosion of melancholic vocals and folk angst capture this sentiment vividly. Another of my favourite tracks is ‘Hours’ where Wyatt quizzes a girl’s rock bottom dealing with desertion and his own frustration in a sensitive but robustly heartfelt four minutes.
As a trio with a lot of musical components to each song, there’s a lot of switching during their set; jumping from guitar to drums from drums to mandolin. It’s a dynamic live show that, along with great, heartfelt music, is entertaining to say the least. A true natural talent was born in the poetic lyrics of Ryan Wyatt that is complimented by Oli and Martin; they’re like bread and butter.
Dead Cities by Dead Cities
Hours by Dead Cities
Saddest Star by Dead Cities