Review & Track Premiere: Colour Haze, Sacred
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on September 12th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream Colour Haze’s premiere of ‘Goldmine.’ Sacred is out soon digitally on Elektrohasch Schallplatten with vinyl to follow.]
Even before listening to Colour Haze‘s Sacred, let us assume that there are more than a few things a band has figured out by the time they get around to issuing their 14th full-length. And as regards their sound, what makes Colour Haze who they are as a band, they have. But they’ve also never stopped exploring. Since 1995, each of the Munich-based troupe’s albums has offered a personality of its own, and over time, there has grown to be consistency within that. One expects a certain amount of tonal warmth from founding guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek and a low-key clinic put on by not-quite-founding-but-it’s-been-almost-25-years-so-close-enough drummer Manfred Merwald, an edge held over in the songwriting from the jams that bore the songs, and so on.
Since 2017’s In Her Garden (review here), longtime collaborator Jan Faszbender has played more of a role on keys and synth — he ‘officially joined’ in 2018 — and that continues in the seven songs and 41 minutes of Sacred, but for the first time since 1998, the band have a new bassist. Mario Oberpucher, who’s also done front-of-house sound and recording for Colour Haze in the past, makes his first studio appearance here in place of Philipp Rasthofer, who left in 2020. That invariably has an effect on the dynamic of the group as a whole, but as noted, every Colour Haze record offers something different. Sacred — basic tracks recorded live by Willi Dammeier at Clouds Hill in Hamburg; overdubbing, mixing, and mastering by Koglek at his Colour Haze Studio — is more of the same in that particular regard.
In some ways, Sacred might be defined by the directness of some of its songs. Following up on 2019’s We Are (review here), the only single track here that tops seven minutes is “Ideologigi” at 8:59, where on the last album, four of seven did. That doesn’t necessarily make the rest of what surrounds that extended side A stretch more straightforward, just relatively concise. Structures vary throughout as the instrumental “Turquoise” (6:09) leads off with a sunrise unfurling over its first two minutes graceful enough to remind you who Colour Haze are, and a smooth, for-a-walk progression that might just have gotten its name in reference to the title-track of 2006’s Tempel (discussed here), the cover art for which was blue. Faszbender‘s keys add a melody to flesh out around the guitar, and shifts into a spacier synth in the second half of the song even as Oberpucher‘s bass comes forward in the two understated payoffs.
“Goldmine” — which follows and actually is more straightforward — works into its verse quickly and leaves the jam for after, surprising almost with a twist back to the verse later on as the bouncing and careening riff works its way toward the end; Colour Haze are no strangers to songwriting, of course, it’s just a balance adjusted in “Goldmine” toward structure carved around the riffs. The aforementioned “Ideologigi” offers ready contrast of purpose, beginning with a dreamy ambient intro in apparent answer to “Turquoise” just a short time ago and the triumph of a lead that emerges in the song’s first half , and moving into the lyrics that answer the heavy-hippie, anti-materialist viewpoint of “Goldmine,” Koglek dipping perhaps into “Lord of This World”-style Sabbathism as he delivers the lines, “Whatever tale you may call your bible/Even enforce by rifles/Life ignores your rules.”
The entire second half of “Ideologigi” is instrumental and wraps side A, but is not to be discounted as Merwald plays it like low-key Buddy Rich, Koglek tears into an improv-sounding solo, Faszbender casts the awe in organ lines and Oberpucher is tasked and succeeds in holding it all together; take that, new guy. They circle around a build at about two minutes in, cut to another, cut to another, then twist and crash and tease falling apart until swapping out realities at four minutes in and locking around a final cycle through the verse riff to let you know they’ve been in control all the while.
Side B leadoff “Avatar,” with its once-again headphone-ready subdued beginning, finds Koglek entering early with quiet and melodic vocal layers before the signature-style shuffling riff — if a guitar lick could also be a whistle, “Avatar” might be one — casually saunters toward a break and return to the not-quite-standalone vocals before its rousing finish. At 3:38, the instrumental “1.5 Degrees” — a climate change policy target/environmental tipping point — is the shortest inclusion, starting out with acoustic guitar, backwards whatnot surrounding, some noise, but gets its point across with what sounds like a metronome in place of an existentialist ticking clock, and the surge of low fuzz that’s maybe the heaviest-sounding tonality Colour Haze have put to tape assures the message of threat isn’t lost.
That part doesn’t last, but it’s clearly meant to grab attention and it does. Where “Avatar” commented on social media lyrically — and that kind of opining on an issue isn’t new for Colour Haze, but the lyrics do seem to be especially pointed this time out — “See the Fools” picks up from “1.5 Degrees” and speaks to divisions between ideologies more generally: “Turn all upside down by lies and made up truths doesn’t cure no pain,” each word almost in a race with the others to be heard first. “See the Fools” (6:54) and “In All You Are” (6:58) are the two longest pieces on Sacred, and both offer fluidity to match the seemingly intended listener immersion. Faszbender weaves synth or mellotron into the crescendo of “See the Fools” around the wistful but somehow hopeful warmth of Koglek‘s guitar, and “In All You Are” brings a joy of a chorus also bolstered by the organ — bolstered by everyone, really; just generally bolstered — and guest vocals by Julia Rutigliano, who brings emphasis to the delivery of the album’s title-line, directed at the listener.
And if that last message, “My dear/You are beloved/You are the love/You are sacred,” is to be the final impression left by the record, it is an in-character sentiment for Colour Haze, but again, distinct in its expression. It has been an eventful few years, and Sacred was obviously not written in a vacuum. It is, however, invariably put through the filter of the group’s and Koglek‘s craft, organically recorded, and presented with love as the believable foundation.
Even as they partially remake their dynamic — I won’t downplay either the change in having Oberpucher on bass or his performance on these tracks — there is much about Sacred that finds Colour Haze playing to their strengths as a rock band, but whether it’s the moments of minimalist ambience leading into or out of songs, the fluidity of their jams, or the apparently willful defiance of where one expects a given song to go, they continue to delight in finding new ways and new ideas to expand the definition of what they do as a unit.
I’m a fan, and I’ve no doubt said as much before, but Colour Haze are a once-in-a-generation band. There is not another out there who does what they do at their level, who has had their influence, or can claim the same kind of commitment to the creativity as an act of searching. It is right that “In All You Are” caps with a sentiment so beautiful since beauty is a thing wholly embraced throughout. As an entirety, is not coincidentally titled.
