Colored Emotions just beige

Colored Emotions.

Is this really a striking and memorable debut album title? It comes off more like the title of a poem a junior high friend posted on MySpace. And though the Minnesapolis band Night Moves combines a lot of genres in its debut album, like that poem, the album is mostly forgettable. Colored Emotions

Night Moves

Afternoon Records

C+

Rocks Like: My Bloody Valentine, Beachwood Sparks

Colored Emotions.

Is this really a striking and memorable debut album title? It comes off more like the title of a poem a junior high friend posted on MySpace. And though the Minnesapolis band Night Moves combines a lot of genres in its debut album, like that poem, the album is mostly forgettable.

Night Moves balances several musical styles in its first album’s compositions. The band’s sound is indie rock with traces of electronic and pop mixed in — think psychedelic pop band Beachwood Sparks meets rock band My Bloody Valentine. The music includes the usual, guitars and drums that have a hippie-throwback rock sounds, along with added instrumentation from synthesizers that give a sort of trippy feel.

It’s certainly not a displeasing sound. But there isn’t too much more that can be said about any of the tracks. The music is humdrum, and nothing is catchy enough to get stuck in a listener’s head or warrant a track repeat. The songs meld together and all sound so similar that it’s hard to tell when one song ends and another begins.

The band’s vocals are reminiscent a Sigur Rós album, where lyrics are sometimes incomprehensible through the singing and humming. Whether it was the band’s intention or not, Night Moves made a CD with a focus on its music, not its vocals. But on this particular album, the nothing-special music isn’t enough to sustain a lack of discernible lyrics.

At best, the band’s music is soothing background sound, likely only listened to unintentionally. At worst, the emotions are just beige.