One of the perks of the internet era comes from the do-it-yourself nature of artists of today and how sonic heel turns are more encouraged than anything. Most of the listening public consume music through the internet via varying qualities of earphones and headphones with Billie Eilish, the artist known to define the final stages of 2010s music, creating sonic soundscapes that fits on any listening platform but is more rewarding the more you listen in on the well-crafted and detail-oriented bedroom pop production.
Enter Texas-based artist colby!, who actually spent her time exploring various creative passions like singing, writing, baking, painting, and performing. Her newest (and to my understanding, debut; reasons why this surprises me will be further elaborated later) EP, Dead Giveaway is out now and it is a wonderfully intricate listen. The young artist is still a budding one despite her sound seemingly already fully realized. Since starting to co-write songs with her producer and brother RJ Johnson at the age of 14, the Berklee College of Music graduate has been developing her sound with a steady pace over time and garnering quite a well-deserved following.
Dead Giveaway is a curiously well-curated release, and I admittedly have reservations over if this is really is colby! showing off her talents on a debut EP, as this project sounds like one that feels so realized and projecting such a mastery over her soundscapes that if she was to say that she’s had multiple releases by now, I would believe that more. The five songs on this EP are all great and yet show so much promise for the talent presented.
The songs on this EP express a story about the harrowingly hard-hitting moments in a relationship, whether romantic or platonic, wherein you realize things are going nowhere fast. From tracks like Dead Giveaway presenting a light funk groove to subtly-but-not-really-subtle-at-all story about things being over and both parties in the relationship being just over it all with lines like “Love will bite the hand that holds you, holds you / I’m like a puddle you walk over” and “Can’t swim in shallow end / Where do I begin“ to Moving On presenting a haunting tale that reads like the sonic inverse of being ghosted and with lines like “I’m so far removed / From the things I would say to you” wallowed all over the track with atmospheric prowess as the synths all over this song warp around with nerve-wrecking bliss and a special shoutout goes to a certain part of the track wherein her vocals warp with echoes; a sonic trick that reminded me of the best moments of Lorde’s sophomore masterpiece Melodrama and is a part I genuinely appreciated and have been putting on loop.
My favorite track, however, easily goes to Break Me Twice; this proto-post-rock track mashing together elements of bedroom pop, alternative rock and even blues rhythms as the colby! gives a devastatingly raw performance wherein her small vocal cracks feel like reality and thus, hit harder as a result.
While this EP deals in the finality of things, colby! is just getting started. On the fuzzy pop rocker, Doing What I Can, colby! says “I’m doing what is best for me” and while I agree that this is her best foot forward, I am eager for her to top this project and come up with new ways to delight and terrify and impress listeners. She’s certainly earned a new avid one with me, and the irony comes from this EP being called Dead Giveaway and yet presenting colby! at new sounds and giving them so much life.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
