Knight in Colors

(Featured in photos)

Last night’s Indy Music Awards Festival had way too many highlights to convey on way too little sleep, so look for full coverage in next week’s issue. In the meantime, here are some photographic highlights courtesy of Matthew Schniper.

With 20 live acts performing full sets on four downtown stages, there was naturally no way to see and hear everything. But if you missed the ReMINDers, Mango Fan Django, Edith Makes a Paper Chain, Charlie Milo, or Grant Sabin, they’ll all be doing encore performances at Saturday’s What If… Festival. Click here for the full schedule.
- Colorado Springs Independent

(Featured in photos)

Last night’s Indy Music Awards Festival had way too many highlights to convey on way too little sleep, so look for full coverage in next week’s issue. In the meantime, here are some photographic highlights courtesy of Matthew Schniper.

With 20 live acts performing full sets on four downtown stages, there was naturally no way to see and hear everything. But if you missed the ReMINDers, Mango Fan Django, Edith Makes a Paper Chain, Charlie Milo, or Grant Sabin, they’ll all be doing encore performances at Saturday’s What If… Festival. Click here for the full schedule.
- Colorado Springs Independent

Blood sugar dropping? Give yourself a shot of alternative rock by downloading this track from Colorado Springs’ Knights in Colors.

Anyone who even remotely pays attention to the music business can recognize the seismic shift that’s taken place over the last decade. Record labels play less of a role, and bands success is largely in their hands, leaving bands to act as businesses and musicians. Clearly, this is helped by social media, but sometimes it can bite.

Colorado Springs alt rockers Knights in Colors recently finished their first EP, entitled “Fourth of July,” when they learned first hand how it can be hard as hell to control distribution of music in the modern era. The track “Coyote” was posted to Reddit without their permission. But rather than freak out, as a corporate label might have, they embraced it, and so did Reddit readers. The track attracted surprising attention with thousands of comments and listens.

Are Reddit users just lonely and bored enough to like anything? Or is this the work of astute crowd-sourced music criticism? See for yourself and download “Coyote” below. If even a single hair on your body is nostalgic for ’90s alternative rock, chances are you’ll dig it. The full EP is available for purchase on the band’s Bandcamp site. - Reverb

Blood sugar dropping? Give yourself a shot of alternative rock by downloading this track from Colorado Springs’ Knights in Colors.

Anyone who even remotely pays attention to the music business can recognize the seismic shift that’s taken place over the last decade. Record labels play less of a role, and bands success is largely in their hands, leaving bands to act as businesses and musicians. Clearly, this is helped by social media, but sometimes it can bite.

Colorado Springs alt rockers Knights in Colors recently finished their first EP, entitled “Fourth of July,” when they learned first hand how it can be hard as hell to control distribution of music in the modern era. The track “Coyote” was posted to Reddit without their permission. But rather than freak out, as a corporate label might have, they embraced it, and so did Reddit readers. The track attracted surprising attention with thousands of comments and listens.

Are Reddit users just lonely and bored enough to like anything? Or is this the work of astute crowd-sourced music criticism? See for yourself and download “Coyote” below. If even a single hair on your body is nostalgic for ’90s alternative rock, chances are you’ll dig it. The full EP is available for purchase on the band’s Bandcamp site. - Reverb

I’ve had a preview copy of this for less than 3 days, and I’ve hardly listened to anything else since I got the opportunity. Knight in Colors have been one of my favorite bands in the Springs since I’ve been involved and I’ll credit a lot of that to their first demo. They came out the gate with songs like “Morse Code”, and “West Coast”; the second of which had a music video that got me listening to the whole demo too many times to count. None of that even counts some of the more personal attachments I have to their music, after however many times I’ve seen them live.

Now we have a new EP, 5 new tracks, produced, mixed, mastered and shiny. This is the first “real” Knight In Colors release and, discarding my bias (Don’t you dare, I swear to god don’t you dare discard that!), this is one of the best releases I’ve heard all year. I would say it’s a good few steps better than the demo.

I can try to describe their music as an intersection between early and late 90s, as if the half of the Counting Crows decided to form a band with Dinosaur Jr. (maybe some Sonic Youth inspired garage rock too). I could also talk about how that music is 10 years or older and can be brought back new and reflected on without feeling old again, but I won’t. Knight In Colors does take those influences to heart as far as I can tell, and their sound is not just their own, but it also sounds new regardless of how old their favorite band might be. Really, the only reason for bringing up comparisons is to give the listener some place to start when they turn this on.

A quick drum fill, some meticulous guitar picking, a loud rush, and a wall of sound; “Coyote” sets this EP off. The picking suddenly gets covered in distortion turning it into a melody while the second guitar and bass come in and just make it louder. Then just drums and picking again, before they layer vocals, than distorted guitar , and bass again. Then when the catchiest lyric flies by, “No, No, No,”, it all falls back out and starts over again; each time the hook in the vocal melody hits, it drops and builds again to the next scream. A short rigid riff transitions the song into a soft bridge with just a guitar and then they layer again. Drums, then bass, then one more distorted guitar; then they back the first melody slower and louder. Ben’s voice just reaching as far back into his throat as he can, to pull out these screaming vocals before he hits the falsetto that brings the track to an end.

The next song starts as quiet as the first ends before another fill leads into one of the coolest feedback loops I’ve ever heard. The guitar and bass lines that lead into each hook vocal are different from the last. The reverbed guitars that scream U2, all over the bridge, just make the end solo (that is nowhere close to any solo pattern I’ve heard before) a climax to be reckoned with. “Don Pocho” might even be the most simple track here.But even with a repetitive lead through the whole track, it still has the same attention to detail that makes the songwriting on this EP so impressive.

The weird spaghetti western intro to “Parlay”, may be the only part of this EP that doesn’t feel like it fits. It then leads into a track that rides the loud part of the “loud/soft” dynamic for most of its duration, and takes the EP back to Knight In Colors mode. Even while your speakers are blaring, the instrumentation is moving all over the place, refusing to fit a mold or remain stagnate. Then it just bows out. I know I haven’t talked much about “Lines” in this review, but I think this is the only song that isn’t quite there with the rest, like Line’s on the demo (but it’s still *zombie* good!)

“Owens” doesn’t rely as much on the layering of instrumentation, but that’s just because the bass line is enough for the whole song (but no, they wouldn’t dare do that). The bass line bows out and everything hits behind Ben’s vocals all at once in one of the most blistering loud moments of this EP. Then it does it all over again. When the bass comes back, for an encore in a quiet interlude, it’s just there to help build the song until the reverb heavy solo takes the lead (oh wait, there’s that bass again).

“Getting Back to Gold” is just a *zombie* mess! It feels like the longest song on the album, even though it’s shorter than the first because it plays every card the other songs did through it’s duration. A subtle feedback loop, reverbed vocals and guitar, and explosive wall of sound and solo, falsetto and screaming vocals, and that “loud/soft” dynamic? Yes, every single idea on this EP is on this track, which is why it brings the whole thing to such a satisfying end.

After every show I’ve seen them play, I’ve listened to the demo knowing most of every set was going to be songs that weren’t on there. It was my attempt to break through the wall of volume and distortion that bounced off of the walls, clouding the tracks I couldn’t quite recognize yet. While I was able to pick out a riff, a - The Brainless Horde - Redheaded Zombie Show