(Andy Synn reviews the debut album of City from Portland, Oregon.)

You either stand on the shoulders of giants, or else you languish in their shadow… is a phrase I’ve just made up and trademarked. So don’t try and steal it. Particularly because I need it to help give this review a sense of purpose and direction.

You see, when it comes to music it does often seem like your choices are reduced to a binary “yes/no”. You either innovate or you imitate. You follow or you lead. You simply copy your influences, or you create something new out of them.

But life, as always, isn’t really that black and white. Everything’s a spectrum, everything’s a scale, and very little in this world is really quite as absolute as it seems.

Case in point, while Portland-based Prog-Metal types City are undeniably still living in the shadows of their forefathers on their debut album On The Edge of Forever, it’s still a solidly rewarding listen in its own right, and displays more than enough promise and potential to suggest that this isn’t a state of affairs that’s going to last forever. Continue reading »