New Music: The Color Wheels


Sometimes this whole music blogging thing is really easy. Sometimes the bands you want to write about find you. And sometimes the best music is the simplest - the bands who know a handful of chords and bleed memorable melodies like they’re poppin’ blood-thinners. Sometimes gems like this one just fall right into your lap.

A band from Poughkeepsie called The Color Wheels emailed me a few weeks ago and asked me to listen to their music, which I did. And now I’m a fan. Easy as that. The Color Wheels are a husband and wife duo, Jon and Psalm Sebastian, who have been playing music together since he taught her how to play drums in 2003 while they were college sweethearts. They started out, as most bands from Poughkeepsie probably have to, by playing in libraries, living rooms, and community colleges. Now they make catchy, exuberant power-pop for a label called Viper Bite Records. Their new self-titled full-length record was produced by Jacques Cohen (Mercury Rev) at The Space Recording Studio in Poughkeepsie.

On the surface The Color Wheels seems like little more than a collection of simple power-pop songs, but closer listening reveals the album to be a look into the complex themes of emerging adolescence. “Trying to resist temptation while at the same time being confused and consumed by it,” Jon explains. The Color Wheels is 11 songs filled with loud guitars, contagious spirit, and sparkling melodies. Though the tempos hardly vary, the songs are catchy as hell. Sometimes that’s all you need. This is music for fans of early Weezer, and just about any good power-pop band of the 90s.

MP3 :: Rock My World
MP3 :: Green Means Go
(from The Color Wheels. Buy here)
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The Color Wheels are playing Arlene’s Grocery in NYC on December 16th.
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