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AOTW:// All-out Alt-rock quintet of Citizen channel the very best of guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll with new offering, Calling the Dogs.

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Like a clean slate per project, Citizen have been labelled and shoehorned in every genre under the sun. Lead headhunter Youth was bracketed in the post-hardcore scene, the yearning guitar bends entering the fray of contemplative shoegaze, with How Does It Feel? feeling like one big philosopher guidebook. While their predecessor to this one – Life In Your Glass World in 2021 – stuck to the traditional roots of fleshed-out rock, bordering on the territory of glazed indie. Here, we see more of what …Glass World left behind; an album that is equally guitar-driven by Mercer’s reflexes as it is led by Mat Kerekes swooning shoegaze-y vocals.’

As 2013’s Youth was a class act in showing, the guys in Citizen aren’t one to leave anything out, with a channeling of raw emotion and energy ever-present throughout their sixth studio albums. This is never been shown in their lead, If You’re Lonely, a catchy singalong song that can easily be present in your local dive with its back-ended gloominess, just as it can be seen as a starting song from the likes of The Snuts or The Courteeners. But rather, their bracket is content enough if we see the likes of Basement or Can’t Swim not too far away. If anything, Calling The Dogs is the bands’ attuned songwriting ability to lean into the trendy curves of catchy floor-to-the-floor rock while keeping their Citizen integrity in tact. While Youth remains somewhat in its own head overthinking with its swooning at the moon as it tries to Sleep; Calling The Dogs is a re-energised assurance of knowing exactly what you want. A garage-rock blast as they peel away the expectations of what they should sound like, i.e. a part two of Youth ten years later; easily their commercial best and arguably, their best best.

While Youth never blares past 100bpm, Calling The Dogs is a cathartic welcome as we see a seismic shift in 11 tracks maintaining the same momentum as the one before it. It’s slowest must be ironically, Can’t Take It Slow, a strong open-ender of more alternative guitar-driven melodies. While Dogs is a distorted breach like we saw on Youth-follow up, Everybody Is Going To Heaven in 2015 and Hyper Trophy has enough anthemic qualities to make the likes of Subways turn heads. The two strongest ones on here – If You’re Lonely and When I Let You Down – as Kerekes’ interpersonal lyricism strike all the right chords. The string bends on Lay Low dredge up past quells of intimate shoegaze while Needs is a new funky fork in the road.

The only thing that’s apparently missing and that is.. classic Citizen, is an elusive ballad sandwiched between the fast distortions, but it seems this wasn’t really on their minds in the studio with fast, fast, fast alt-rock album taking up the space, instead. It may have been a welcomed break to take time to slow things down and contemplate but it seems that Calling The Dogs isn’t one to be taken too seriously. “I feel like people have these expectations of Citizen of what we should and what we shouldn’t sound like”, Kerekes says as he sits down with Alternative Press, “we can do what we want, and it doesn’t really matter.”

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With Calling the Dogs comes a band most comfortable in their skin conveying exactly the ideas they want; portraying a band very much for the cathartic thrill of live lettings-gos up and down the country. An alt-rock classic from experts in their own right, their latest instalment is out now.