EP Review: Colour TV - 'How To Ask'
Colour TV’s 'How To Ask' is the much-awaited follow-up to the bands debut “Is That You”. An eclectic all-encompassing EP, it deals with themes of emotional turmoil; heartbreak and jealousy; anger, regret and sadness. All so with a youthful energy, that means that even when tracks delve into the deeper subjects, there’s always an overwhelming feeling of levity.
The four-piece met at college in Cornwall, and as many teenagers do - decided to start a band. But as not many teenagers do, decided to do so instead of finishing their A Levels. Their music is built from their surroundings; their friends and their relationships. They harness the unique quality of being surveyors and also insiders, commenting on the teenage lives which they’re also experiencing. It is this mixture of familiarity and strangeness that makes their songs so catchy, so candid, and so fiercely memorable.
Colour TV’s 2021 debut EP, featuring the singles Charlie and Billy Pilgrim, made an instant impact with their fast growing fan base. Even the legendary Steve Lamacq declared the band to be "my favourite new thing", just before confirming the band his ‘Spotlight Artist’ on his BBC 6 Music New Music Fix show. ‘Billy Pilgrim’ was proclaimed his National Anthem. And as I have swore the sacred oath to the Church of Mr Lamacq, I cannot disagree with any of these nominations.
And I’m sure he’d approve of ‘How to Ask’.
The band place us in the suffocating walls of a boarding school, which luckily, till now I’ve never experienced. “Wherever You Need” is fairly upbeat, the edginess of the track being based solely on the imaginative vocal distortion. The excellent guitar work drives the song, as they balance their own individuality with instrumental staples of indie rock. The chorus relies up a classic cord progression, intruiging any listen with its familiar catchiness, before diverging their attention with their unique Colour TVstylings. In this sense ‘Wherever You Need” is truly unique. The varied styles of the track cleverly create opposite of conflict, the differences within the song pairing nicely throughout. Like grapes and cheese. Or chilli and chocolate. The band experiment and absorb each other’s styles and imagination.
“For Belugas”’ is almost aquatic in its sombreness. Listeners get absorbed by it - almost carried away. It has some standouts lyrically with lines like “All we share in common is we’re better off alone” having noticeable poignancy. The wavering vocals, sounds like the band are always on the verge of tears. The glorious break down in the last third of the song is so vast, so emotional that listeners almost get lost in it. Swimming in the heartbreak of it all.
What was described in the bands press release as the ‘bus shelter of liminal opportunity’ “Education Is Like This” is truly the star of this EP. The music purrs with a motorised immediacy, surpassing the ambition of their previous tracks. It’s best suited to an annoyed teenage sitting their GCSEs/alevels. I definitely would have listened to this in my headphones while ignoring my mum at the dinner table. And I would have felt quite cool doing so.
The only weak point of this four-track return is Pavlova, purely for its lack of eccentricity, found in other tracks. It’s not band. No song is. But that’s the issue when you raise the bar so high - some works struggle to reach it.
‘How to Ask’ is a hodge-podge of teenage life, with four tracks commenting on all four corners of it. It’s a lovely little collection to listen to while doodling your crushes name on your notebook, drawing phallic symbols on a school desk or genuinely feeling everything that is so overwhelming about youth. It does all it needs to do in under 20 minutes - and that’s undeniably impressive.
Words by Maia Gibbs
