Dears No Cities Left Soundtrack CD - Import

The Dears' 2004 album NO CITIES LEFT was well recieved by critics and includes the tracks "Warm & Sunny Days," "We Can Have It," "Don't Lose The Faith," and "Never Destroy Us."

This edition includes four bonus tracks on the bonus Protest EP.

While the Dears are not a textbook goth band, this Canadian collective's second release, NO CITIES LEFT, burns with the despondent, desperate melodrama implied by the tag. The opener, "We Can Have It," blazes with angst as singer Murray A. Lightburn half-weeps "You never said I'd see you again." Lightburn's velvety lilt unabashedly channels Morrissey, though duets with singer Natalia Yanchak recall the tongue-in-cheek duels between Calvin Johnson and Amelia Fletcher of Heavenly. Cabaret horns and chamber strings characterize the sultry soap opera "Expect the Worst/'Cos She's a Tourist" and the Muzak funk of "Never Destroy Us." The Dears' brand of brooding manifests in extended pop symphonies that update the sounds of Pulp and the Smiths, and their Britpop/cabaret hybrid does bring to mind a stylish scene of black tattered suits swaying to the rhythm of a Las Vegas production number.

Australian Exclusive contains the bonus 'Protest' EP! THE DEARS hail from musical hot-spot - Montreal, Canada. 'No Cities Left' is the greatest and grandest work from a band for whom "epic" seems too cheap a description, the ultimate culmination of the band's unhinged onstage catharsis and studio sophistication. Bonus tracks, 'Heaven Have Mercy on Us', 'Summer of Protest', 'No Hope Before Desctruction' and 'Protest (Parallel) - Remix. Speak N Spell. 2005.Spin (pp.99-100) - "[G]orgeous....[T]here's a cleverness to Lightburn's stylish panic attacks..." - Grade: A-
Uncut (p.120) - 4 stars out of 5 - "This is seriously literate stuff, and all the better for it....A record that carries a narrative, both musical and lyrical, without becoming a turgid concept album."
Uncut (p.76) - Ranked #32 in Uncut's "Best New Albums of 2004" - "[D]elicious, dark and consistently surprising..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.108) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[A] richly textured and coherent narrative, with the 12 songs cleverly juxtaposing the end of a romantic relationship with the end of the world....A drizzly doomsday masterpiece."