The Colour

As the affectedly Anglophiliac spelling of this Orange County-based band’s name indicates, the Colour originally had a stake in the early-2000s revival of British post-punk tropes, alongside the likes of the Strokes, Interpol, and Hot Hot Heat. However, as that scene has faded from Next Big Thing status, the Colour have dropped much of the faux-English posturing while (at least temporarily) discovering their inner heshers. The Colour formed in 2002 when the bandmembers met as students at Biola University, a small private Christian college in the heart of the Los Angeles suburbs of Orange County. Singer Wyatt Hull, lead guitarist Luke MacMaster, rhythm guitarist Davey Quon, and drummer Nathan Warkentin gigged around L.A. with a number of bassists before the lineup finally solidified with the addition of permanent bassist Derek Van Heule. The group signed to the Lizard King label, a British pseudo-indie tied to Warner Music Group that had successfully broken the Killers the year before. The new wave revival single «Mirror Ball» and a debut EP, Out and About with the Colour, both featured tightly wound rhythms, jittery guitar riffs, and a vocal style from Hull that less than subtly evoked the Cure’s Robert Smith and Echo & the Bunnymen’s Ian McCullough.

When both releases failed to generate any buzz, the Colour split with Lizard King and completely refashioned themselves. Perhaps taking a cue from the chart success of the Darkness and the hipster buzz surrounding Wolfmother, the Colour reappeared in 2006 as a ’70s-vintage boogie outfit, with Hull bypassing his earlier vocal role models in favor of a white-boy-blooze sound closer to Mick Jagger by way of Jack White. The Colour signed with the aptly named Rethink imprint of EMI and released their second EP, Devil’s Got a Holda Me, in the summer of 2006, with the full-length debut Between Earth & Sky following in the fall. The revamped style failed to sustain the band, however, and the Colour announced their breakup in June 2007.