Brilliant Colors, Introducing Brilliant Colors

Brilliant Colors , Introducing Brilliant Colors [Slumberland Records]

By Anthony Mark Happel »  Brilliant Colors was birthed in 2007 by guitarist Jess Scott, but she went through numerous line-up changes in the past couple of years, until finally hooking up with Michelle Hill and Diane Anastasio and establishing a permanent line-up.

It’s all systems go on the Bay Area band’s brief debut album (22 minutes 52 seconds), which finds a great hook-laden, hard-ass slack-jawed pop tune like “Yell In The Air” sharing space with the somewhat minimal Sonic Youth-ish dissonance of “You Say You Want.” And that’s just the beginning. “Over There” offers up some crooked pop that carries with it a cool, muffled guitar sound. “Mythic” comes off like the Red Aunts doing an X-Ray Spex b-side. And I could go on and on.

Every song nudges it’s way forward and demands to be recognized separate from the others.  The varied aspects of the songwriting, and the spirit of the playing, deserve something better as a descriptor than, simply, "pop" or "punk," or some shapeless combination of the two. Both of those terms have, ironically, been rendered meaningless by their syntactical juxtaposition. Brilliant Colors seems to allow all of their sensibilities into the room at the same time, and then they annunciate whatever feels like coming out. And damned if it doesn’t work for them.  They mash together numerous influences and attitudes, that pull from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, into a super-compressed set of songs.  “I Searched” sounds like it could have bounced itself right out of 1979.

The connection to everything from the Buzzcocks to Siouxsie & the Banshees to The Bats, and all points in between, is not contrived.  It’s feels as organic as digital electrical impulses delivered via a plastic covered disc can possibly feel.  A dark horse contender for Top Ten Albums of 2009.

Posted on October 29, 2009

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