“The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!” The classic line from a beloved movie said by someone whose creativity was beyond comprehension. It’s as if Willy Wonka was constantly experiencing the world differently with heighted senses as though he knew the secret to tapping into the sixth sense. Music has this incredible ability to replicate that feeling and give us an almost out of body experience. Post rock, in particular, has been able to capture this perfectly with soft melodies, lush guitar tones and trance-like rhythms.
Enter Covet, a California based band that made waves after releasing their debut EP, Currents, in 2015. If the combination of math and post rock weren’t enough, the band had a secret weapon in lead guitarist, Yvette Young. The classically trained musician from UCLA was initially a piano player and used that knowledge to transition writing on a 7-string guitar coupled with a tapping method on the strings that was just jaw-dropping. Their 2018 full length, Effloresce, on Triple Crown was a breath of fresh air to math rock and further shined the spotlight on how talented she and the band are. Rounded out by David Adamiak on bass and Forrest Rice on drums, the band just seem to connect in a way that made playing this technical math rock look easy.
Fast forward to 2020 and their new album, Technicolor, takes what they did on Effloresce and amplifies it. The one word to describe the record would be “dreamlike”. Some bands and albums have this incredible ability to just take you away; away from negative thoughts, stress, work, whatever it may be. Another album that comes to mind as of recent is Generator by Vasudeva. This album just puts you at peace and just makes you want to take a deep breath and say: “It’s going to be okay!”. Yvette further reinforces this by stating: “When you listen to technicolor, I want you to be transported elsewhere. My goal is to uplift and make you feel reflective of emotions and experience a whole spectrum.”
Effloresce was a very calculated album and you could feel Yvette & Co. really focusing on every note they would play. Technicolor just “flows” with an ambience and atmosphere, once again feeling so effortless on the bands part. The band has always toed the line between math and post rock and their embracing the latter is just breathtaking and a welcome addition. Yvette evens starts to loosen up so much she feels comfortable singing on tracks such as lead single, “Parachute” and closing track “Farewell”. We should have heard her voice long before this because it is beautiful and utilized perfectly in the context of the songs.
Production wise, the band once again worked with Mike Watts and Frank Mitaritonna at Vudu Studious and the two really pushed the band to produce their most diverse and expansive group of songs yet. The band even reached out to fellow post rock aficionados, Caspian, to help them on the song, “Predawn”. The risks they took incorporating additional instruments such as flutes and violins just furthers proves how incredible this album is.
People may be on to something when they say music heightens colors and vice versa or maybe they “are on” something! Either way, this is an album that will put a smile on your face and is the perfect album for those warm summer days or days when you just need a musical dose of Vitamin D.
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Technicolor drops June 5 via Triple Crown Records, and is available for pre-order now.