Technicolor, by Covet
Suggested by Rob Wagner
At the start of this project, I did not covet Prog Rock.
Being honest, I wasn’t really sure what it was. Those two simple words cover such a huge genre. It’s been there for years. It’s such a wide canvas that you could likely point at any band that’s ever existed and come up with some justification as to why they are a Prog Rock unit.
“Oh, they have a guitarist? They’re Prog for sure.”
“Ah, I see that the drummer once took a train to Antwerp. I believe Rush started the Antwerp Train Trip thing back in the Seventies.”
“The bassist has skin? Classic Prog Rock, all those bands have bassists with skin.”
Thankfully, modern services do take this monolithic genre and deftly slice it into wafer-thin slivers, each with its own moniker. So the Prog Rocking Covet are further labelled as Math Rock, a subgenre concerned with atypical rhythmic structures, angular melodies, odd time signatures, and dissonant chords.
Back in Album 123, I reviewed Effloresce, Covet’s debut album from 2018. I singled it out for praise with a fair 7/10. Will Yvette Young’s follow-up, 2020’s Technicolor, offer more of the same?
It will indeed. For good, and for ill.
Effloresce, I suggested, was best described with the following three words: Beautiful, Intricate, and Repetitive. Technicolor picks up each of those three words, and continues on with their mission statements.
Technicolor is Beautiful. Beauty was a surprising descriptor for Effloresce. It showed that the genre could surprise me, even woo me, presenting delicate and emotive tracks across the board. There’s nothing rasping or stubbled here; stroke your hand against the surface of any song, and it’ll glide across like silk on smooth skin, or a curling stone in the wake of a frenetic brooming.
Technicolor is Intricate. Yvette Young’s skill is peerless. She’s the very definition of virtuoso, in the modern aspect. There’s nothing puffed or pompous in her playing, as you might find in one of those spiral-permed guitar legends. The other musicians here have apartments in Value Town too, and they duck and dodge, dive and dance through some wonderfully nuanced and intelligent songs. Every second feels charted, embroidered onto a vast tapestry of music designed to blanket the room.
Technicolor is Repetitive. As with Effloresce, there’s a sense of the shapeless here. The sound is both beautiful and intricate, but the embroidered tapestry mentioned above is cut from a very singular piece of cloth. Not only is it repetitive in itself, it’s repetitive with Efforesce. My standout song here is Predawn (feat. Phillip Jamieson), in large part because it’s featuring Phillip Jamieson. He brings something different to the committee meeting, and the collaboration that ensues brings out the best of all sides.
Technicolor racks up another decent 7/10 score for Covet’s musical ledger. If you enjoyed the first, you’ll enjoy the second, but make no mistake: despite Prog Rock’s implied Dare to be Different slogan, this album could easily be christened Effloresce Part Two.