Freddie Benedict (vocal); Chris Bland (piano); Kieran Gunter
(guitar); Luke Fowler (bass); Floyer Sydenham (drums)
There’s
something about a debut that tells you whether it’s going to be a moment… or
just another tune that drifts past. Colours doesn’t drift. It moves. It shifts. It finds its shape
as it goes - never settling in one place for too long.
This isn’t a tentative first step. It
carries a kind of natural assurance, the sort that comes from understanding how
to let a song unfold rather than trying to pin it down. Nothing forced, nothing
overplayed. Just a line set in motion, and the confidence to follow where it
leads.
It opens with the voice, held lightly over drums and bass - Floyer
Sydenham and Luke Fowler giving it that subtle pulse - no preamble, just the
line set free from the outset. There’s a sense of space in it, of something
already in motion. Then, gradually, the rest begins to gather - Chris Bland’s
piano finding its place, Kieran Gunter’s guitar adding colour at the edges - everything
building with a quiet sense of purpose. Nothing rushed, nothing forced. The
vocal leads, and the band follows, each element stepping in at just the right
moment, letting the song grow naturally into itself.
The mood settles across the room, but never stays still - shifting
and changing colours as it goes. Tones deepen, then brighten again. Phrases
pick up a different hue each time they return, like the same moment seen from a
slightly different place. Nothing is fixed for long.
And then you start to catch what it’s really holding.
There’s a summer running through it - warm, effortless, the kind
of connection that feels like it might just carry on forever. You can almost
see it from the outside too… the kind of couple people notice. The glances
across the room, that quiet envy that comes with watching something that looks
complete, untouched.
But it doesn’t stay there.
Almost without realising it, the tone begins to shift. The same
colours start to look different. What once felt bright begins to soften at the
edges. That sense of being watched - admired, even envied - starts to fall away
as the first cracks appear.
And underneath that shift sits something sharper. The idea that
people don’t always stay as they first appear. That something - a moment, a
choice, a catalyst - can turn the light in an instant. A drink, something
unspoken… whatever it is, it doesn’t need spelling out. You just feel the
change. The sense of someone becoming something else, almost in a heartbeat.
And somewhere in that sits the line that anchors it all - quiet,
but cutting through it - you changed your colours.
It’s never pushed. Never overstated. Just allowed to surface,
the way these things do - gradually, then all at once.
There’s a looseness to the phrasing that feels instinctive.
Notes aren’t chased - they’re allowed to land where they fall, stretching just
enough to play against the rhythm. You hear it in the way the melody bends, in
the way a line lingers and then releases. There’s a warmth in that delivery
too, a swing that feels easy rather than imposed - something that carries a
touch of Harry Connick Jr. in
the way it balances intimacy with lift, never losing the thread of the song.
And then the scat.
It changes the air. Bright, airy - like the whole thing takes a
breath and opens out. For a moment, it almost returns to that earlier lightness -
that
sense of possibility, of movement, of something still alive. But even here, it
feels different now. Not untouched, but refracted. The same colours, seen after
they’ve already begun to shift.
Because this is a song built on movement - on how quickly
something can turn, how something that once felt certain can take on an
entirely different shade.
You can feel the emotional current underneath it all, but it
never weighs the track down. It passes through - glimpsed in a phrase, caught
in a look, felt more than stated. That mix of warmth and quiet loss gives it
its edge.
The arrangement understands that. Piano that leaves space for
the vocal to turn. Guitar that adds shade rather than weight. A rhythm section
that keeps everything in motion without ever tying it down. It all feels fluid,
like a conversation that follows its own path.
And that’s the thing with Colours. It doesn’t hold
onto one moment. It lets them pass - what it was, what it became, what was lost
somewhere in between.
With a debut single as good as this, the album promises to be a
cracker. Glenn Wright
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