Colour TV – iBaby

“Don’t turn the light off and leave me”

After a two-year hiatus, the South-West four-piece Colour TV are back with their new single ‘iBaby’. Recorded at Cube Studios on the Cornish coast, it was mastered by Slowdive’s Simon Scott.

*image & artwork courtesy of the band & This Feeling.

In 2023, Colour TV reimagined the purpose of being a Wallflower with great English prose and tunes to rival Bernard Butler-era Suede. Everything was in place to give indie its soul back. Then came the news that frontman Sam Durneen was suffering from mental health issues.

What followed their announcement of return was inevitable. Questions of whether the world has moved on and can they still do it inevitably arose.

In their time away, Fontaines DC seminal album ‘Romance’ has proved the UK is ready to feel the love through its music again. Meanwhile, the emergence of The North, April Tapes, and Pynch has ushered in a new era of emotion-driven poetry inspired by indie-punk.

‘iBaby’ lands the band right at the heart of a scene seemingly designed for them to thrive. Jack Yeo’s guitars twist and tumble with the drama of ‘Dog Man Star’ and at points, rupture hearts with the isolation of Steve Mason (Gene).

Twisted and tormented, this brand of alt-pop music is essential for these times. Beneath its heartbreak, the song hums with the unease of a world coming apart, the failing relationship echoing a political climate unravelling at the seams. As Durneen declares, “I loved you like a son / Stone you like a mother / it’s never gonna feel how it did when you were young”, their unique sense of agony roared to the surface.

With Gene returning this month, and Suede releasing yet another great album, it’s only fitting that Colour TV return and offer this generation their vision. The spotlight may be on their esteemed elders, but it won't be for long.

Colour TV – You Treat This Place Like A Hotel

The Southwest band of brothers returned on Monday with a new lineup and a new single. ‘You Treat This Place Like A Hotel’ with new bass player Chris Harwood in tow, was released via Tip Top Recordings and is taken from their upcoming third EP.

Artwork & images courtesy of the band.

It’s been quite the 2023 for indie outfit. ‘Christopher’s Halo’ fizzed with Suede’s brooding intensity, whilst ‘Vanilla’ was blessed with enough volatility to form and end a cult in 24 hours.  ‘YTTPLAH’ comes as somewhat of a shock with its gentle atmosphere.

To date, Frontman Sam Durneen has been forging his way into the history books alongside Morrissey and Brett Anderson as another magnetic poet dripping in sexuality and tormented charisma. Here, he adopts a falsetto vocal and a calmer cadence which lends the discourse of rejection and isolation an eerie eloquence.

His new style is met by a gentler sonic on Jack Yeo and James Elliot’s guitars. Together they conjure a delicate moment of social and romantic precariousness worthy of ‘The Perks of Being A Wallflower’. The lighter licks inject the math rock scene of the late 00s with an emotional power it always sorely lacked.

With the heart of 00s indie outcasts Polytechnic and the soul of The Crookes, Colour TV have flipped their identity on its head in a moment of sensual maudlin genius. The forlorn protagonist's plight is one that teenage hearts cannot fail to clutch as their own.

Softer in tone but no less impactful. Colour TV’s third EP promises to be quite something.

Colour TV – Vanilla

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