Rockin' Our Turntable: Secret Colours

By Eric Hehr in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 6, 2012 4:20PM

For the past two years, Secret Colours —made up of Tommy Evans, Dave Stach, Dylan Olson, Justin Frederick, Margaret Albright, and Nate Wiese—have been at the forefront of Chicago’s psych-rock scene, playing everywhere from underground D.I.Y venues to tastemaker festivals such as SXSW in Austin. Unlike other Chicago-based psych rock acts such as Great Society Mind Destroyers, Secret Colours blend their hallucinogenic sound with traditional pop hooks, inviting a broader spectrum of listeners to their music outside of high-brow psych-rock aficionados; the kind of self-proclaimed pop music scholars who worship their Pebbles and Nuggets box-sets like an evangelical preaches from their bible. You don’t have to have a background in the sub-genres of garage-rock or psych-rock to enjoy Secret Colours' lucid sound, nor do you have to be on psychedelic drugs to appreciate their fondness of drone and monotonous structure. Secret Colours are at their best when they transcend the stringent restrictions of their genre and find the unanimous melodic hooks buried beneath the reverb and fuzz; capitalizing on their pop potential without sacrificing the raw grittiness of their sound. Fortunately, the aforementioned occurs quite a bit on Secret Colours' recently released EP, the ambiguously titled EP3.

EP3 is Secret Colours' follow-up to their 2010 self-titled album, and it continues to display the bands fondness of sounds rooted in '90s shoe-gaze, '60s British invasion, and early '70s English metal. However, unlike previous Secret Colours' releases, EP3 firmly plants its fidelity in contemporary music. This is most likely due to the addition of producer Brian Deck, who chisels Secret Colours' genre-specific tones into a modern-day hi-fi spectrum without sacrificing the faithfulness of their bygone sources. Take bassist, Dylan Olson's sullied fuzz tone on “Legends of Love,” which sounds like a modern-day interpretation of Bill Wyman’s tone on “Have You Seen Your Mother Baby?” or the instrumental break in EP3 opener, “Faust,” which could easily find itself at home on Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. EP3 is a fresh-take on Secret Colours' signature sound that is as much homage to its influences as it is a progression of the bands impressive discography.

The five-song EP ends with a cover of The Kinks' 1966 single, “Sunny Afternoon.” Unlike Secret Colours previously released covers (the band digitally released a psyched-out interpretation of The Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” last year), “Sunny Afternoon” is handled with modest respect and adheres to the craftsmanship of Ray Davies original composition. The cover is sparsely arranged with acoustic guitar, organ, and Rhodes, and displays lead singer Tommy Evans' best vocal performance yet.

The choice of cover is a telltale sign into the heart of EP3: Secret Colours is a pop group disguised as a psych-rock outfit. Half of the songs on EP3 don’t break the three-minute mark, and their verse/chorus/verse/chorus structure keeps the reprisal of their hooks intact. EP3 isn’t just dirty tones, echoing vocals, and elongated jamming. Nor is it a revival of psych-rock, garage-rock, shoe-gaze, or anything else Anton Newcombe probably has in his record collection. Secret Colours is a band that embraces everything from Blur to The Black Angels to The Kinks and creates a distinct hybrid that sounds both catchy and dissonant, old and new, hypnotic and focused, original and familiar.

Here’s a young band—only two years old—that obviously understands the aesthetic of rock ‘n roll (sunglasses in dimly lit venues, leather jackets in humid weather, clouds of cigarette smoke and whiskey stained jeans), the attitude of rock ‘n roll (plug in, turn it up loud, and fuck off), and the sound of rock ‘n roll (tear the speaker, distort the pre-amp, and marinate it all in reverb). Because Secret Colours have such a meticulous understanding of the concept they’re executing, it is easy to view the bands music as novelty emulation as opposed to genuine expression. This has been a prevalent critique of Secret Colours in past reviews, and one that will hopefully fade as the band continues to develop and progress.

But, hey, make up your own mind about Secret Colours. Head on over to The Empty Bottle tomorrow to catch the Secret Colours EP3 release show with Apteka. The show is FREE with RSVP, so be sure to send an e-mail to rsvp@emptybottle.com by midnight the night before the show. Your RSVP does not guarantee admission. However, buying an advance ticket through TicketWeb does.

Secret Colours plays Saturday, Jan. 7, at The Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 10 p.m., FREE with RSVP, 21+