Ohio natives Citizen returned to the UK earlier this month for a small run of dates in support of their latest album ‘Calling The Dogs’ released back in October 2023, whilst also coinciding with the 10 year anniversary of their iconic album ‘Youth’. Is This Music headed down to The Project House in Leeds to check them out.
Joining Citizen were New York hardcore mob Drug Church and rising alt-pop star Viji, who kicked the night off in style with a short but stunning set, an eclectic mix of riot-grrl and ’90s inspired indie sleaze. The stand-out track of her set, to me, was ‘Sharks’, a more up-tempo number taken from her debut album ‘So Vanilla’, released in October of last year.
Drug Church are a band I wasn’t super familiar with coming into tonight, though I’d heard good things from other photographers who’d seen them on this tour so far. They were right, and then some! Lead singer Patrick Kindlon hits the crowd with the quote of the night, if not the year, telling them to “Think of yourselves as a waterfall of skin” which might just be the most unique way I’ve ever witnessed a band urging the crowd to move around, it may also be my favourite, it also worked. Bodies upon bodies fly over the barrier during their set, and, on a night where temperatures sunk to around -3°C, it was safe to say everyone inside Project House was more than a little warmed up.
The moment we had all been waiting for arrived as Citizen burst onto the stage and straight into ‘Hyper Trophy’ and ‘If You’re Lonely’ from their latest record, with ‘Jet’ (the opening track from 2017’s “As You Please” sandwiched seamlessly’in between.
While newer songs such as ‘Can’t Take it Slow’, ‘When I let You Down” and ‘Dogs’ do connect effortlessly with the crowd, the reaction is nowhere near the same as some of the tracks from earlier records.
A trio of tracks taken from ‘Youth”‘ get the room singing along to every word and crowdsurfing their way over the front barrier. The triple threat of ‘The Summer’, ‘How Does It Feel?’ and ‘Your Head Got Misplaced’ go down firmly as the highlight of the night.
The band finish with a double header of ‘Death Dance Approximately’ and ‘I Just Want To Kill You’ which demands every ounce of remaining energy the crowd has to offer.
It’s been a long time since Citizen were last over here, in fact, this is the first time they’ve journeyed across the pond since before the pandemic, and tonight not only proved that they were worth the wait, but also that absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder.