When Radiohead released Kid A way back in 2000, it was met with a more than muted response. People initially thought Radiohead had lost it, but the album and their direction endured and they have managed to remain an ambitious and fine band for a very long time. Kid A was ahead of it's time and it seems that the musicians are finally catching up.
The Radiohead sound is one of the first things you hear when putting on CANON BLUE'S 'Colonies.' Album opener 'Treehouses' could quite easily be a Radiohead b-side – it's unmistakably Radiohead, something Daniel James (the person behind the act) is probably sick of hearing. Fast beats, wailing vocals and chaos. 'Rum Beats' could perhaps have appeared on 'The Eraser' rather effortlessly; a lament over.
That's not the write Canon Blue off as copyists of Britain's finest. There are perhaps three songs that have Thom Yorke stamped all over them, but the rest of the album covers a lot of ground; some of which works.
Positives first; the folk-tronica side of proceedings is done very well. There are songs that Manitoba or Four Tet would be proud of producing. There is that ambient element to it that would make some of these songs a perfect accompaniment for those who have stayed up way past their bedtime. 'Pilguin Pop' is uplifting – it has MTV's 120 minutes written all over – some sort of animated video. Then it's gets to the chorus and it gets dirtier, and stays dirtier. It's a song that meanders between the beautiful and the bedsit.
If you like your soundscapes lush, there is plenty to please on here. 'Pale Horse' starts with some nice computer generated squiggly sounds (you know what I mean) and becomes increasingly urgent, trip-hop if trip-hop went slightly less hop. That the album is about the history of colonisation makes it an even more interesting proposition, and time should be taken to listen to the lyrics.
There is a huge range of vocal and musical styles on display here, and the album leaps from one concept to another. They all sound vaguely familiar, but there's definitely a twist. The piano throughout is portrayed beautifully, and it is that which is the backbone of 'Colonies,' as opposed to the heavy reliance on computer based beats.
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And now the things that make this just an alright album. The more melancholic moments are pretty dull. Post-rock, dreamy but bleak moments always tread a fine-line between earth-shattering brilliance and absolute tedium, and this album falls to the latter (think Feeder trying to be experimental). 'Odds and Ends' and 'Mother Tongue' sound like Puressence on a very lazy day, and there is little to enjoy about these parts of the album.
The dull bits kill the momentum of the album and it's hard to remain interested throughout. 'Mouth to Mouth' is so dull that it kills things off once and for all; it's overblown and a little too produced. The age of downloading means that people can be more selective about which tracks they take from an album, and it's recommended that people do check this out, but pick the songs they want carefully.
That this album has perpetuated from pretty much one mind makes this album rather impressive in terms of it's size and diversity. It's downfall is that when it is compared to the music it sounds (often uncannily) like, it isn't quite up to scratch. Daniel James is clearly very creative and very talented; he just needs to find his own path, or he may be written off as a copyist.
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