Cornwall’s Colour TV are back once more with their new single ‘Vanilla’. It follows the roaring success of ‘Christopher Halo’ back in February.
Last time out on ‘Christopher’s Halo’, Colour TV shifted away from the Britpop revivalist tag with their gothic Cure meets 00s indie-punk anthem. On ‘Vanilla’, they return to the early to mid-90s for inspiration but crucially, with the objective of smashing that era with a Peter Gibbons fury and reimagining it for today’s fragmented world.
Image & artwork courtesy of the band and This Feeling
The harder edges of ‘Vanilla’ shroud ‘Metal Mickey’ with snarling blasts of Nirvana and Sonic Youth alongside the deranged punk-psyche of Cabbage did so well in their early days. Consequentially, it conjures a drama drenched in flamboyance, narcissism, and angst that is intoxicating.
Frontman Sam Durbeen bursts with post-punk yelps and vicious snarls which blend ‘Change Giver’ era Rick Witter with Brett Anderson’s more chaotic moments (the verses of ‘Moving’ / ‘Animal Nitrate’) to counter the visceral sonic. His charm peaks with the acerbic Morrissey-esque lyric of the year:
“Still I like it when you hit me on holiday in Whitby”
As the protagonist attempts to free themselves from repression, a world of self-doubt opens up. It’s met head-on with a visceral intent to beat it into submission. Self-doubt, angst, and isolation has never sounded so great!
Durneen’s playfulness brings an Englishness to the band’s newfound grunge slant. It hasn’t reinvented the wheel but it’s undoubtedly flipped it. Whereas the likes of Sleeper, The Auteurs, and Echobelly deftly manouvered the US scene into their UK satellite town vision in 1993/94, Colour TV is forging both scenes’ peaks in blood and guts.
Narcissistic. Ecstatic. Great!
Click the image below for tickets. On sale at 10am 2nd June
