The Colour Wheels - The Color Wheels [Album]

Viper Bite Records

January 10, 2009, 12:45 PM

Music has thrown up a few husband and wife combos – Joy Zipper, Viva Voce and erm….Husband&Wife (OK they’re four guys who are not actually married) and now Jon and Psalm Sebastian from Poughkeepsie, New York give it a go as The Color Wheels. Released on Viper Bite Records, their self titled debut was produced rather surprisingly by Jacques Cohen of Mercury Rev.

It all opens with ‘Rock My World’, with its DIY drums hammering away in the background, it’s a fantastic little lo-fi pop tune. It’s as good as Ben Kweller finest melodic moments, as is second track ‘Green Means Go’; a cool little teenage power-pop anthem. So far The Color Wheels come across as a very likeable band. They do sugar-sweet little indie pop songs very well….or do they? ‘Plane Jane’ is quite aptly titled as it is indeed plane and unspectacular. It’s nice enough, but definitely a disappointment after what preceded it. ‘Superjet Waterslide’ on the other hand is nothing like it’s title suggests, in that it’s not nearly as much fun. It’s apparent that The Color Wheels are pretty much one tone. There is no real variance in their sound, which is fine for some bands, but if you’re a one trick pony then you do need to make sure you don’t have one or two tracks where you perform that trick far better than anywhere else, otherwise everything else is just filler.

Nothing on the whole album comes close to ‘Rock My World’ or ‘Green Means Go’, they quite simply have the two stand-out melodies of the album, and let’s face it, power pop is ALL about the melody. You need hooks as big as battleship anchors (when Weezer lost theirs, everyone lost interest), and that’s exactly what the first two tracks possess, but everything that follows simply does not.

‘Hot For Teacher’, ‘Camping Trip’, ‘Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’’ and ‘Let’s Play House’ all skip by as callow as possible, and it’s becoming apparent that most of the The Color Wheels’ songs revolve around growing up. It sounds as though these songs were perhaps written by Jon when he was still at school. It’s just all a little too childish. ‘Pirate Ship’ and Candy Dish’ do not exactly ripen this fruit either (Pirate Ship was surely written for Sesame Street) , although ‘Candy Dish’ does at least bookend the album with some quality. It’s a shame then that it’s the shortest track at one minute and sixteen seconds.

It’s hard to dislike this band, as they seem to have good intentions and enjoy what they do (and when you see them, you kind of just want to give them both a big hug), and I have no doubt there will be some big fans of this out there, but for me it’s just not done well enough past track two. Having grown up listening to bands such as Weezer and Fountains of Wayne amongst my Pink Floyd and Pixies, I do have an appreciation for power pop, but this just doesn’t have the extra quality, and dare I say bite, that those two bands have demonstrated at their peak. I just hope that by the time they roll round again, The Color Wheels turn out to ‘Rock My World’ a little more.


http://www.myspace.com/thecolorwheels