By After being in the studio for 18 months, Aussie trio, Crooked Colours, are ready to return to centre stage with their debut 10-track album, ‘Vera’ via Sweat It Out. A fusion of indie and electronica, the album comes as a breath of fresh air in a saturated industry, and with it, Crooked Colours make a strong case for being one of the hottest rising acts in electronic music today.
Crooked Colours start off strong with their first released single ‘Flow’ was a great success with airplay from Triple J and Radio 1. With clean guitar licks, percussive drum sequences, and lead-singer Phil’s seductive vocals that draw the listener in further with every verse. This electric mixture carries through the album, but Crooked Colours ensure to diversify each track so that sets the overall atmosphere of the rest of the LP.
‘Plymouth’ follows similar slow beat with a high note beat that I could see being remixed by someone into a cool tropical summer tune. ‘I Hope You Get It’ features Melbourne Hip Hop rapper Ivan Ooze brings out different charismatic and distinctive vocals to the album.
Phil said to Broadway World about the colaboration: “It was really just one of those dream results where we reach out to someone we weren’t too familiar with and he knocked it out of the park. It highlighted the raw talent that Ivan has when writing that we sent him the track in the afternoon and that night he sent back pretty much the finished product.”
‘Running Blind’ to the laid-back dance groove of ‘Flow’, the trio keep the textural contrast up throughout. Their dark, groovy beats are irresistible and again, you could see this getting turned into a huge summer anthem.
On titular track ‘Vera’, Crooked Colours stick to instrumentation without vocal, allowing the listener to truly appreciate what the album stands for. Focusing more on the electronic side of things, the track provides a short, but well-timed, mid-album breather.
‘All Eyes’ introduces listeners to the back end of the record, a track that encapsulates the band’s ability to effortlessly change the vibe multiple times in 3 minutes. The heavy synths of ‘Shine On’ follows it up, marking the penultimate track on the LP before ‘Perfect Run’ caps off the journey. Leaving the organic instrumentation behind in favour of anthemic synths and drum machines, ‘Perfect Run’ is a track that wouldn’t sound out of place in a techno set.
‘Vera’ is an upbeat and funky debut album from Crooked Colours, their electronic indie pop style has come just in time for the hot summer ahead. With a similar sound to the likes of Jagwar Ma and Glass Animals, their electronica music can easily be heard on the beach and in the clubs with their house styled beats and funky electronic drums round it off for a very good debut album.
