The Color Turning
Our Currency Is Time (EP) (2002)

review by: Stephan Finch
Date: 11/4/02

A promising gem of an EP from indie rockers The Color Turning.

What a nice surprise to discover The Color Turning. I was totally perplexed to find their independently-released disc, Our Currency Is Time, buried under mounds of paper on my desk. When I popped it in my Mac for listen, I was knocked out to find five finely crafted songs that the band must have spent a mint to professionally record at Threshold Sound + Vision in Los Angeles.

TCT has a smooth, complex sound. They have two guitar players, Sean Rodriguez and Chris McLaughlin, and they've worked hard to create a richly-layered sonic landscape by combining acoustic and electric guitars, the latter as cool and slick as crème fraiche. Steve Scavo sings along with great range in a kind of near-whisper that occasionally sounds a little tentative to me.

TCT's songs work for me. They'd rather you sit down and really listen than get up and dance. The band fits into the interesting school of artists, led by Radiohead and Coldplay, that has been successfully crossing the intensely intellectual focus that "art-rock" pushed in the 1970s with the jangling guitars of the "progressive rock" 1980s. I like it. A lot of the work these bands have done surpasses the music that Yes or Rush did. And it's as much fun to listen to as REM or the Boo Radleys were.

It's not clear that a band can succeed without producing songs the kids can dance to. But I'm looking forward to their future work. And I plan to keep listening to this CD.