Saturday Looks Good to Me
Cold Colors
Polyvinyl
Saturday Looks Good to Me’s final release for Polyvinyl Records is an uncharacteristic one. The group’s two previous albums – All Your Summer Songs and Every Night – despite being lo-fi and exhibiting experimental tendencies, were always rooted firmly in classic orchestral pop from the ’60s (The Left Banke) and ’70s (Fleetwood Mac).
With Cold Colors, Fred Thomas and his rotating backing band further embrace the avant-garde and burn almost all their ties with a mainstream sound. The title track leads off the EP with meandering, expository sounds that barely coalesce into a semblance of a song. “Drink My Blood” swaps in much of that weirdness for a sinister, slinking acoustic guitar riff appropriate for Halloween make-out parties. The same goes for the fractured dreams of the folky psychedelic “Illuminated Circles Dream of Backwards Running Vampires.” “Idiots” comes closest to Saturday’s previous work with viable hooks and a catchy chorus, but it’s “Spiderbite” that dominates this album. The track begins like a gentle ballad, keeping things minimal and rustic, not even building toward any sort of release. Halfway through the track a percussive onslaught kicks in like a sudden fever dream pummeling melodies and setting up steady drones in their stead. Rather than providing the missing link between the band’s Polyvinyl work and their K Records debut, Cold Colors actually pushes their sound to a new limit and sets the bar even higher for what Saturday Looks Good to Me is capable of turning into a genius fusion of sound.
Polyvinyl Records: http://www.polyvinylrecords.com
