CD Review
Artist: Your Vegas
Title: A Town and Two Cities
Label: Universal Music Canada
Released: April 18th 2008     

4 Stars    

Reviewed By: Darren Paul (Edmonton Correspondent - Canada)

With an anthemic size tempered by genuine emotiveness, Your Vegas' A Town and Two Cities delivers a thoroughly modern sound, recalling the best of stadium rock. But for his better tuning, Coyle Girelli could be mistaken for Bono, and the band goes so far past four-chord rock you might think the other boys are along as well. The sounds on this debut album are simply larger than what else is happening right now. 

The album opens with It Makes My Heart Break, where the influence of U2 is unmistakable. The synth intro rises in intensity and with a quick drum fill breaks into a great guitar riff, that melts into a bass driven verse. Coyle's first utterances of the album are filled with passion and soar above the instrumentation.  The use of falsetto singing is a fresh touch in In My Head and The Way the War Was Won pulls back on the tempo for a personal and internal ballad. Both this and Salvador, the two ballads, make wonderful use of piano-centric themes.

What is conspicuous about A Town and Two Cities is the maturity of the musicians. The lyrics are poetic and well thought out. There is a complexity in the songs, a breaking of expectation that is exciting.

If the album suffers anywhere (other than the single Your Vegas being mostly forgettable) it that at a casual listening the songs meld into each other and have a similar sound and feel. Only with an intent ear do the songs reveal themselves as individual units of poetry. A Town and Two Cities isn't exactly party music, but for nodding your head over a good pint or pumping you up for conquest, it hits the mark. This is good mature music, borrowing heavily from what is done, but with enough of a spin to be new. 

1. It Makes My Heart Break - 3:17
2. In My Head - 3:38
3. Birds of Paradise - 3:39
4. Aurora - 3:27
5. Troubled Times - 3:33
6. The Way The War Was Won - 4:17
7. Your Vegas - 3:35
8. Up Until The Lights Go Out - 3:56
9. I Wish You Were Somewhere Else - 3:40
10.  Salvador - 5:29