Smoke Or Fire's ABOVE THE CITY

I was loving Smoke Or Fire's "Indecision" from the Protect comp, blaring it once a day for about a week straight, so I decided to pick up one of their albums. I went with their debut on Fat Wreck Chords, Above the City, because it came out the same year as "Indecision". Good stuff. Reminds me of 90s alternative bands like aMiniature, Boys Life, Crumbox, Versus, and Vitreous Humor. I didn't keep on my iPod Smoke Or Fire's opening and penultimate tracks, "California's Burning" and "Cryin' Shame" — the former sounds like screamo and the latter is mostly acoustic; both don't jibe with the rest of the record. The other 10 tracks are awesome (clocking in at 19 minutes)! I like how there are pretty much no guitar solos.

P.S. Weird how Division Of Laura Lee's Black City came out three years earlier, in 2002, on compatriot Epitaph Records, and had cover art of a skyline too.