An album that initially excited me with its breezy, lightweight charm, 'When' by Colour of Sound turned out (after its ten tracks) to be a mostly unreverberant manufacturing of mediocre soft pop-rock that left little impression on me.
Opening track 'Take This Ride' introduces the album with a tangible sense of atmosphere, vibrant with pregnant ambience and texturally, dynamically reminiscent of The Beatles' 'Within You Without You'. 'Open Room', the album's first single, is rather more immediate in its appeal, the influence of Neil Young is clear as Fraser MacColl's soft breeze of alt-country electric guitar plays gently against Rod da Rosa's husky, Kelly Jones-esque vocal. Nothing seems particularly fresh or innovative about the songwriting on the band's own eponymous track, 'Colour of Sound', however, which is miserably similar to a Robbie Williams ballad in the chorus. A disappointment after two promising tracks. Contrastingly to 'Colour of Sound', 'Pennylan Park' displays a decent measure of songcraft, sweet vocal harmonies and building major/minor guitar chord shifts make for a relatively interesting track.
There's an endearing, comforting quality to the easy delivery of a tried-and-tested chord progression, but track after track of it begins to tire; this album may want to be 'After The Gold Rush', but I'm constantly waiting for that minute-long hurricane blast of Young guitar that so empowers the dreamy, melodic verse of his classic record. No such invigorating accompaniment to the blandly secure verse-chorus-verse formula can be found on 'When'.
'Someday' sees, finally, Colour of Sound come out of their shell a little, but it still seems more "Bryan Adams" than it should. There's nothing cool or whimsical about unimaginative soft-rock guitar licks and towards-the-climax drum rolls anymore. Frankly, the colour of Colour of Sound's sound is probably grey. However, it's a nice enough album and by no means do I doubt the talent of the musicians behind it, but the flavour of originality is distinctly lacking from 'When's' essence.
Stereoboard Rating: 6/10
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There's an endearing, comforting quality to the easy delivery of a tried-and-tested chord progression, but track after track of it begins to tire; this album may want to be 'After The Gold Rush', but I'm constantly waiting for that minute-long hurricane blast of Young guitar that so empowers the dreamy, melodic verse of his classic record. No such invigorating accompaniment to the blandly secure verse-chorus-verse formula can be found on 'When'.
