Gorgeous Colours

It’s been a good year or two since we heard new music from Dublin band the Gorgeous Colours. ‘It’s OK To Be Normal‘ saw them become more assured and ‘Bright Ideas’ continues this ideal. A slow-paced song, it sounds like it takes influence from a more optimistic the National, with dah-dah-dahs spread throughout its 4.20-minute running time. “Your attention span is full of holes,” they tell us as if they know we’re looking at Facebook after we press play on ‘Bright Ideas’. They add: “Tell me what I want to hear, hide the rest, I’ll hide my fears.” ‘Bright Ideas’ is melodic and addictive, and you can listen to it below. The Gorgeous Colours launch the single at the Grand Social on Saturday with Come On Live Long filling the support slot. You’ll be able to download ‘Bright Ideas’ from here on Saturday, too. The band said: “It’s from our forthcoming album Bring Out The Axe which we’ve been working on for ages and will be releasing later in the year.” Welcome back you Gorgeous Colours. - The Point Of Everything

Is there anyone else in Ireland making music quite so lovely as The Gorgeous Colours? When I cast my mind back to their last two singles – ‘It’s OK To Be Normal‘ and ‘Chopped Heart’ – I think not. ‘Bright Ideas’, their latest creation, continues this rich vein of form – arriving as another bright and beautiful treat that brims with yet more heartfelt melodies. You can almost imagine how it was written too; that simple, repeating guitar lick giving way to an impromptu ‘ba-dah…ba-dah’ and then it all blossoming from there. Three first rate singles in a row means it all bodes very well for their new album, Bring Out the Axe, which will finally see the light of day at some point this year.

Until then you can catch TGC at the single launch in The Grand Social this Saturday, with support from the ever-impressive Come On Live Long.

Special mention for the really splendid artwork here too, which is again by Bob Corish. - Stop The Lights

“Accomplished arrangements, and blissful four part harmonies that ooze pure sunshine....a perfect package of feel good, danceable and all round lovely, gorgeous even, sounds” - State.ie

“...certainly the best thing I’ve ever heard from the band. The band’s older and wiser sound variably calls to mind bands like Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes...a (gentle) belter” - Nialler9 blog

“...certainly the best thing I’ve ever heard from the band. The band’s older and wiser sound variably calls to mind bands like Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes...a (gentle) belter” - Nialler9 blog

A fantastic Irish 4 piece who released the best EP I heard last year, The Creatures Down Below. Fours songs that would stand out on any album and a contender for video of the year with the title track from that EP. A band that simply needs to be heard by the right people to progress, hopefully that will happen in 2011. - MusicPup Ireland

"one of the best pop songs to emerge from this country in the last twelve months or so...A triumph for the band and a reason to be excited about any future releases." - Drop-D

"A fantastic Irish 4 piece who released the best EP I heard last year, The Creatures Down Below. Fours songs that would stand out on any album and a contender for video of the year with the title track from that EP. A band that simply needs to be heard by the right people to progress, hopefully that will happen in 2011." - MusicPup Ireland

"A fantastic Irish 4 piece who released the best EP I heard last year, The Creatures Down Below. Fours songs that would stand out on any album and a contender for video of the year with the title track from that EP. A band that simply needs to be heard by the right people to progress, hopefully that will happen in 2011." - MusicPup Ireland

"You'll want to listen over and over...The Gorgeous Colours are growing into a band that we could all easily fall in love with." - Tell That Cat to Chill blog

"Close to the premier piece of Irish pop I’ve heard all year...there’s probably no end to this band's talent, so strap yourself in for lots of future treats" - MP3Hugger blog

"Leave it to some boys from Dublin to provide us with one of the year's catchiest pop songs that isn't really pop. "The Creatures Down Below" fools you into thinking it's pop, what with it's major chords and punchy piano lines. But just listen to the lyrics or take a look at the video below (warning: there will be blood) and you get a sense that there's a bit more to the song. And for that, I love it." - The Indie Sea blog

"In an age where scuzzy, distorted surf-pop is the sound du jour, it's easy for sincere, slightly eccentric piano alt-pop to get overlooked somewhat. Dublin's The Gorgeous Colours, however, remind us just how good this kind of music can be...their lead single 'The Creatures Down Below' - from their similarly-titled EP - is full of loveable, childish quirkiness" - The Music Journal blog

Varied and absorbing, The Creatures Down Below begins with the title track, a deceptive little number with all manner of off-kilter harmonies, hooks and backing vocals that play off each other. It's intricate stuff, calling to mind the vintage pop-craft of the Super Furry Animals among others. Elsewhere there's 'Animal', an enchanting folk number with warm harmonies reminiscent of Fleet Foxes, as well as the galloping rhythms of the sweeping, skiffle-tinged 'No Man's Land'. - Electric Whipcrack blog

"One of the most underrated bands in Ireland...four tracks that deserve to be heard. No gimmicks, no trying to be the newest sound around, The Gorgeous Colours make beautiful music that urges you to listen again. And it was all possible thanks to donations from 100 fans. It may not have worked for NWA (if memory serves me correctly), but it has worked for the band straight out of Dublin." - The Point of Everything blog

"The EP’S title track opens with the best typewriter riff since the Tom Tom Club’s ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ and it sets up the song’s rhythm: a wonky, fascinating affair based around staccato pianos, timpani and eccentric Beach Boys harmonies. It’s predictably great, as is the ensuing ‘Animal’ where further apparently disparate elements such as finger-picked guitars and curious loping drum patterns come together gloriously with a nonchalance most bands would give their eye teeth for...

...It’s patently obvious, then, that The Gorgeous Colours haven’t lost their touch. They have returned sounding perhaps a little more world-weary, but the very fact they have returned at all is reason to run up the flags. Especially when they make it feel like they’ve never been away." - WhisperinandHollerin.com

"The meteoric rise of The Gorgeous Colours is such that one can't help but get a sense that if their colourful cascading comet hurtles much further along its current trajectory they will soon blast into a different musical stratosphere. They seem to have everything in their arsenal needed to reach the top of their game, and seem to be going there fast. Hot Press picked them from hundreds of bands for a competition to perform at Castlepalooza when the band were mere months old and went on to describe their first single Burning as 'genius summed up in four and a half minutes'. They've been compared to The Spinto Band, Neil Young and The Violent Femmes amongst others and, suitably, sound like a band that have been together for eons. Their mastery of their individual instruments combined with their obvious song-writing talents, keen business acumen and electric live performances have catapulted them to a height from which they just keep rising and rising." - O2 Making Waves Podcast (podcastingireland.ie)

"One of my favourite Irish bands have returned, and boy howdy was it worth the wait. The Gorgeous Colours specialise in upbeat that relies on doing old things so well that they sound new. They sing harmonies good enough and warm enough to put the sun in the winter sky, and their songs are full of the kind of happiness and sincerity that most bands don't dare attempt...The above song is their new single, the title track from their new EP, one of my favourite songs of the year, and while it perfectly exemplifies the cheeriness at which the band excel, it shows the darker side of their new material, the sadness that you can occasionally hear in a lingering word, or tense guitar arpeggio. It's beautiful, but slightly appalling at the same time. You'll see." - The Torture Garden blog

"The Gorgeous Colours personified a valued pop sensibility with accomplished arrangements, and blissful four part harmonies that oozed pure sunshine. Lots of pleasantly plinking xylophone sounds trickled through ‘Locksmith’, over the rough round the edges, Neil Young ‘Heart of Gold’ tinged vocals. ‘Animal’ was a master-class in dulcet harmonies overlapping slow burning percussion and gently jangling guitars, punctuated with appropriate, never irksome, ‘oooohs’. A perfect package of feel good, danceable and all round lovely, gorgeous even, sounds."" - State.ie

"The Creatures Down Below" is the new EP from The Gorgeous Colours and it’s certainly the best thing I’ve ever heard from the band. The band’s older and wiser sound variably calls to mind bands like Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes...a (gentle) belter. - Nialler9 blog

"...close to the premier piece of Irish pop I’ve heard all year...There’s probably no end to this bands talent so strap yourself in for lots of future treats" - mp3Hugger blog

"On first listen these songs will reel you into their gorgeous world instantly. New single 'The Creatures Down Below' is one of the best tunes I've heard in a while. It's such a charming twinkling melody with a backdrop of brooding intensity that resembles Grizzly Bear's finest spine tingling moments. The video is as pristine as the song and really channels the dark undercurrents. You'll want to listen over and over...The Gorgeous Colours are growing into a band that we could all easily fall in love with." - Tellthatcattochill.blogspot.com

“The sheer pleasure the band take in playing, combined with the energy and jubilant nature of the music translates into one of the most enjoyable live bands in the country at the moment.” - UCD Tribune

“Of all the countless bands I’ve listen to over the years, Dublin five-piece The Gorgeous Colours are one of my most beloved, and bizarrely, one of the least well-known..We can only hope that soon they’ll be able to share their music with a larger audience!” - The Goes The Fear Blog

Impressive...these unassuming, but clearly ambitious young Dublin-based bucks have plenty going for them. Any support band that can get their audience to do an a capella/ barbershop take of the intro line of their closing tune ("Aah...AAHH...AAAAHHHHH!!!") like The Gorgeous Colours do are going places, believe me. In the near future, the Irish indie scene will be painting it anything but black, it seems. - www.whisperinandhollerin.com

"Thank fuck for the Gorgeous Colours. If you're starting to find it hard to move in Ireland for all the rock rip-off clones clogging up the stages, then salvation surely lies with these four idea-laden people. Thumping rhythms and exotic guitars meet in the Mexican badlands on the single 'Hunting Something'. Phantom FM and its listeners were powerless, as were we. Track of the year? Just maybe, but it was no fluke, as anyone who's been at one of their arse-shifting live shows will understand. - Connected Magazine

"Let's get it out of the way early: with their self-titled debut, The Gorgeous colours have made one of the finest Irish pop albums for some time. Though they may at first glance resemble many of the myriad beardy-types-with-guitars bands that fill stages up and down the country, they possess a quiet confidence that sets them apart from the flock. This group of talented musicians complement one another better than most of their counterparts: a hallmark of many fine bands, this helps bring out the best in the songs, adding little details that seems to grown in scale and significance with each listen, until you find yourself looking forward to the little bass flourishes and vocal tics that have come to seem utterly inspired.....
The band seem to have figured out how to use their instruments to every possible effect, ratcheting up the tension viciously in the opening bars of "Hunting Something", before picking out the dreamy melodies of the gorgeously lovelorn "Locksmith" – a song so good it make the line "You're my lovely girl/my thump-thump beats for you" seem beautifully earnest, rather than hopelessly romantic...A quite remarkable debut." - Shane Culloty.... - State magazine, Ireland

"What a funny world we live in that 'The Script' can come out of nowhere and top the UK album charts through a mix of gloopy cheesy rock and heavy promo. The Gorgeous Colours must ignore such industry conjuring, because their moment of greatness is upon them and they're destined for richer paths. Although bearing connections to the dearly departed The Immediate, The Colours' greatest asset is their simplicity. They are the anti-Immediate, relying on mood and instinct rather than bluster and complexity. They observe the classic American songwriting of Burt Bacharach and Ryan Adams as well as the balls-out stomp of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, while not really resembling any of them. Syrupy slow burners like 'Miss You' and 'Locksmith' are countered by the dark pop of 'Holy Moly' and the crashing 'We Are'. And in 'Hunting Something' they have something very special indeed - a lusty and lustful national treasure of a tune. Playful. 4/5" - Connected Magazine

"A debut that is as bright and shiny as their moniker suggests....fusing Bacharach sensibilities with new age rhythms, this self-titled opus will have you whistling along after the first listen and makes you hopeful that maybe, just maybe, the indie pop tune isn't dead yet"
- Hot Press magazine

"The Gorgeous Colours are fecking brilliant. This seems to be the general consensus of anyone interested in the Irish indie music scene! Who am I to disagree? The Dublin five piece have released a self-titled debut album of nine songs which will appeal to fans of Calexico, Arcade Fire, and TV on the Radio. It is indie rock at it's best" - Mixtape 4 Melfi blog

You've probably heard me moaning about the state of the Irish music scene on a couple of occasions but of late several bright chinks of light have started to appear. Now you can add the Gorgeous Colours to a growing batch of newbies who may yet help usher in a new dawn. The Dublin acts' eponymous debut is being launched in Whelan's on the 6th of September (Saturday) and it promises to be a special occasion given how impressive their record is. In essence 'The Gorgeous Colours' doesn't sound like it was made in Dublin, it has a drifter quality which means it could veer off to a destination unknown at any time. In many ways it is stripped of shiny adornments but beneath the fancy-free production is a lush bed of creativity that gives every song a clear individuality. There's longevity in this album, it is a fascinating listen that never blows its own trumpet vacuously. Instead it slowly grinds you down with an understated sense of purpose while all the while your attention becomes more focused until the excitement becomes apparent. Up to this I hadn't listened to a full album in a single sitting recently but I've just gone through 'The Gorgeous Colours' twice. My ears are in heat and at this moment in time TGC is the only thing that can sate their animalistic cravings. - mp3Hugger blog