Secret Colours’ “Positive Distractions I”

by Samuel Hernandez

There is no shame when a modern band evokes nostalgia. Secret Colours are performing expansive music, billowing out from their garage into radios tuned to 1970s rock and roll. An essence captured of strolling down boulevards, driving through montages, and knowing the band you’re listening to is inventing a new sound.

“I love it when she calls me baby,” the band opens with “City Slicker,” delivered with an ecstatic nonchalance. The guitar riffs are accumulative here. It’s time to write lustful poetry about the unknowing crush you have by leaning against a wall and smoking cigarettes. City Slicker is cool music for cool kids.

The gem of the album, “It Can’t Be Simple,” is a simple elegance evoking Elvis Costello driven by a constant thrum from the keyboard. Again the disaffected image of youth, but here learning how to do something with all that energy. The song, and the album, feel like a volcanic eruption in control. Better put, the album is watching a psychedelic explosion from the comfort of your home but yearning to be there.

The band is all encompassing though able to throwdown and then slowdown  to get the listener into a different mood altogether.  Positive Distractions I, out now, is a tease for the follow up. Throw the record on and let the garage pop and skillful guitars provide the acid trip for your day.