Music Review – Cameron Burch – Colorblind

I love the way this track starts out. The lone snap of the bass, a simple riff, immediately making you feel the need to nod your head or make some sort of minimal, repetitive gesture in time with the music. The the track kicks in full time, and it sounds like a live recording for the most part. Real rock and roll, indie, fairly distorted and soaked in reverb. Grungy, even. The drum beat is great, it creates a real feeling of rock and roll, but in an almost acoustic way; that distant shaker-like sound makes the whole track seem like it could be being performed completely unplugged, right there in front of you.

The video to this track features some real time partying. It pairs up effectively with the rock and roll vibe, and the whole “I don’t wanna grow up, I just wanna sleep all day” lyrical honesty of the vocal. The clip tells you to turn it up, and when you do – it does actually make it all more of a moment. I really want to hear a more studio-like production on this one though, as the distorted solo guitar is good, well placed, but lacking that powerful snap that a perfectly fused selection of effects could add during mixing. I guess that’s not very rock and roll though, so fair play to the musicians involved for keeping it raw.

There are a couple of these short instrumental breaks where the flick of that distorted solo guitar can be heard, and it gives you a moment to breathe the track in, but apart from this; the music doesn’t really stray away from the main melody until the spoken segment at the very end. (Which, it has to be said, is brilliantly suited to the whole theme of the track, and the video of course.) It would’ve been good to hear a little unexpected outburst of music somewhere in there, to make it really stand out as one artist’s musical offering to the world. A short whispered section or a slight change of melody at some point might have re-captured my attention towards the end. Luckily though, the opening riff was strong enough that I remained enticed by that heavy bounce of the bass and the humble crash of the drums. There were indeed some moments of real indie-rock power.

By Rebecca Cullen

Travelling musician and writer from Manchester, UK.