
Color Theory – The Art of Anger
It might seem pretty ridiculous to consider now, when 99% of music is made using some sort of controller plugged into a laptop, but the numerous sounds that synthesizers can produce was something that needed to fought for. Not long ago they were things that real musicians and their fans could not accept.
Why? It was fake music, as far as they were concerned. It was artificial, not sweating or making faces when playing a complicated solo. And, worse of all, it threatened the livelihood of musicians. Why get a virtuoso guitar player in for a session when one of those musicians could do the job? Sound familiar?
Bands like Depeche Mode, tremendously musical, human-sounding, and assisted by synths and modern technology, proved that these concerns weren’t strictly correct.
Now, years later, Color Theory’s “The Art of Anger” uses a similar approach. Synths are used here to create a sound that is as deep and unknowable as the valleys during the nighttime. And it’s not merely an exercise in creating tension but also in solving it with pleasing melodies hanging off of the sound of the synthesiser. Man has made a machine, and the two have met and reconciled their differences. Tech may still steal a few human jobs, but it is most effective when used to work alongside the artist.
Jet Lag Fuel – Nothing Left to Undo
To the untrained ear, it may sound like indie and alternative rock albums haven’t evolved much from the early 1980s until today. After all, how far can you go while nearly exclusively using power chords and distorted guitars? How deep can you go into the human experience while writing verse, chorus, and verse songs that are rarely more than three minutes long? You’d be surprised!
For the most part, alt-rock stars have gotten sneakier. Starting with the 90s, they’ve developed schemes of how to get onto the radio and how to get stuck in people’s heads. The guitars are still distorted, and the singer still sounds disoriented, but make no mistake, pop music has become part of the package, and it’s created some serious expectations.
Alternative rock bands now need to make an immediate impression. No 7-seven minute songs about seagulls, no second chances. Luckily, Jet Lag Fuel’s “Nothing Left to Undo” has precisely those qualities that make a rock tune easy to digest and simple to enjoy on first listen.
The distorted power chords slide in just right, and the singing, the vocals of a confused person who has been through a lot, perfectly resemble the great alt-rock singers of the 1990s. You never know how far a first impression can take you, but failing to make an impression always gets you silently rejected. Fortunately, Jet Lag Fuel does not need to find this out.