City and Colour's Next Album Promises More Piano and More Rock

The next City and Colour album will stretch out from the haunting acoustic singer-songwriter style that has made Dallas Green's solo project just as popular as his intense melodic-hardcore band Alexisonfire.

Green -- who headlined the massive Molson Amphitheatre last month in his homebase of Toronto -- has demoed 14 songs, and plans to record the follow-up to 2008's 'Bring Me Your Love' in January.

"I've got lots of different songs," he tells Spinner. "There are a lot of musically unusual songs. There's a lot more piano on these songs, keyboards and stuff. And there are a couple of songs almost I would say a bit rockin' [laughs], if that makes any sense, not in a heavy metal kind of way, but just a little bit more upbeat than what you're used to hearing from me."


Green previewed a couple of new songs live this summer, including 'Silver & Gold' and 'Sister.'

"'Silver & Gold' is a song I wrote about a dream I had about the world ending," he says. '''Sister' is a song I wrote about my sister. She's been going through some things that I was worried about so I wrote a song about it."

The summer was relatively light work-wise for Green, as Alexisonfire played festivals dates in Europe for a couple of weeks and had some miscellaneous shows, and City and Colour played sporadic dates as well.

"We tried to take the summer off from touring heavily, but I've been in the studio here and there, doing new stuff," says Green. "I haven't really taken time off off in five years, since I started putting out City and Colour stuff, too.



"I was toying with the idea of recording the record, but then I decided that I'd probably have a nervous breakdown if I don't take some sort of time to myself and just do nothing. So by that, I wrote some hip-hop songs and recorded a song about an oil spill. That's my idea of taking some time off," he laughs.

The hip-hop songs are with his friend Shad, a new version of 'Listen' from the rapper's 2010 album, 'TSOL,' plus a new co-wrote called 'Live Forever.' They will likely come out on 12-inch vinyl and digitally through iTunes. The oil spill song, 'At the Bird's Foot,' under City and Colour, will be available on a digital-only compilation in the fall.

But earlier this month, Alexisonfire finally went in the studio and recorded the much talked about 'Dog's Blood' EP. The band will then finish up the album cycle for its latest album, 'Old Crows/Young Cardinals,' with a Canadian headlining tour from Nov. 26 in Victoria, BC to Dec. 16 in Toronto.