Small Colors
RBM, 2020
9/10
This 3rd album from the Boston/Rhode Island collective The Pull Of Autumn brings 16 tracks of art-influenced, genre defying sounds where members come from several countries, and the sounds traverse many decades and plenty of textures.
“Bakchalarda” starts the listen with much ambience as glitchy sounds meet wordless vocals in an exciting, experimental landscape, and “Easy” follows with acoustic guitar and deep vocals as an almost New Age backdrop enters the soothing yet playful setting.
Things only get more interesting from here, including the folk-like strumming of “That’s How It’s Always Been”, while “The Stars Or The Jungle” is some variation of avant-garde indie-rock that moves cautiously and unpredictably. “Bored And Lonely”, the album highlight, then brings raspy singing and hand clapping to a campfire meets coffeehouse anthem that jangles in all the right ways.
Near the end, the busy, buzzing “Color” is a droning, fuzzed out rocker that’s got some alt-rock muscle behind it, and “No Day At The Beach” exits the listen calm, with poetic storytelling against the sounds of water in a mysterious, atypical finish.
An extremely original album that embrace post-rock, jazz, and British folk music, to name a few, members of The Pull Of Autumn also play in Johanna’s House Of Glamour, Broken Little Sister and Boyracer, among many others, and their collective skill makes Small Colors a fascinating journey that we’re all better off for experiencing.
Travels well with: Fashion- Stairway To Nowhere; Johanna’s House Of Fashion- As Far As Forever