Brilliant Colors
Introducing
Slumberland
I knew I’d like this just looking at the cover. I wish more bands would put themselves on the covers of their albums. Even if it does look like the Brilliant Colors trio is obscured behind a pane of flour-splattered glass, they still strike that effortless mix of awkward (weird-ass haircuts and shirts) and drop-dead cool (sunglasses on all three). The lyrics are on the inside cover in a hurried scrawl of black-marker inspiration – the ones with only five lines and a frenzied yelp are often the best.
To describe the brilliantly clattering and un-self-conscious music on Introducing, I have to start by saying something that is going to sound like a backhanded compliment, but it’s not intended that way; there is nothing on this album that sounds particularly new. You’ve heard it before, in different configurations. Brilliant Colors succeeds (where lesser bands fail) by dint of conviction, volume, and the serrated wonder in their joyous noise. Again, you know it well – thousand yard stare, icy female vocals, oddly out of time sense of poise in their execution (almost like Raincoats or Velvets), a frenzied stumble of drums and sheets of spiky, buzzing, wall-of-thrash guitar noise trumping everything else. Stray hints of Vaselines, Beat Happening, Vivian Girls, Marine Girls, Dinosaur Jr., Raincoats, and The Slits slice through your speakers, reminding you of heartbreaks, secret promises, and raucous laughter on some autumn night. The songs rush by in a frenzied trample, less than a half-hour in all, flush with the thrill of being alive and dancing to your own, two-chord, rapturous noise. I want more already.
Slumberland: http://www.slumberlandrecords.com
