2022’s See Through Blue saw Llanelli rockers Scarlet Rebels not so much breach as stomp all over the UK Top 40, with a number seven placing. It was reward for a journey that has seen the band continue to develop and push themselves as songwriters. Listening to it ahead of my deep dive into Where The Colours Meet, it still sounds magnificent. A true quality sophomore release.
Scarlet Rebels – Where The Colours Meet (Earache Records)
Release Date: 16 August 2024
Words: Paul Hutchings
See Through Blue was fantastic, but Where The Colours Meet is on another level altogether. The songs are tighter, the melodies richer, with Scarlet Rebels wringing every drop out in their performances here.
The production of Colin Richardson and Chris Clancy is once again crisp and slick, with just enough grit. The band have introduced piano, keyboards and a big drum sound, all which provide an uplifting and emotive experience that you will want to repeat over and over.
See Through Blue had a different set of themes running through it. “With Where the Colours Meet, we made an album of unity, a call for togetherness in a world gone mad,” Frontman Wayne Doyle told us. “Our last album was deliberately polarising. I don’t regret that, and it was amazing to see everyone who did choose to stand with us as we spoke the truth about the wicked forces working in our world.”
The cover is striking, the design by Boomtown Festival poster designer Holy Moly certainly a departure from the previous album, which if you recall depicted Boris Johnson’s shadow as a demon.
Add in a collaboration with the fantastic Elles Bailey and a couple of writing credits for Ricky Warwick, and you have the perfect album in so many ways.
Where The Colours Meet features twelve songs, just under 50 minutes in length, and contains several highly uplighting anthems. The rock ballad Out Of Time, which features Bailey, is case in point. Drawn from a meeting between Doyle and Bailey, where each party drew on past experiences and notes they had made. It is a love story from both sides, and it is possibly the most emotional track here.
Unfashionable, maybe, but one that certainly hits in the feels. Bailey’s vocal is incredible, rich and smoky with her soulful delivery crafted to compliment Doyle. As the tempo increases, there is an opportunity for Chris Jones to throw in a sweet solo that is delivered with the right level of feeling to match the overall feel of the song.
Whilst the album is crafted and polished, it’s a simple riff that starts things off in the right way. Secret Drug is possibly one of the finest earworms you will hear in 2024. An AC/DC stomp for sure, but with a hook big enough to catch Moby Dick. There are the harmonies we have come to expect, with a riff that rolls for days. One listen, and you will be humming it for weeks. A potent and clever opener that entices you immediately.
The Rebels have taken two songs into the factory and reworked them. Practice Run is one, with its honest and emotional content, and the other is Let Me In, which talks about the honesty in a relationship, the opening and of acceptance, and one that the band has agonised over recording.
“The song was written way back,” Doyle says, “when very few people cared. My idea at the time was to make as much of a pop song as possible, with almost fairytale lyrics and wrap it up with heavy detuned guitars and pounding drums. We wanted the chorus to be easy to pick up so that everyone could sing along even if their acquaintance with the song had only been short.”
It’s certainly got the swagger necessary for a live staple, and for me, it’s got the same Welsh feeling that Those Damn Crows and Florence Black bring to the party. And that is good enough for me.
Richardson and Clancy described It Was Beautiful as “boring” on first listen, but their cruel yet honest opinion is what the Rebels wanted here. A reworking turns it into an up tempo emotional semi-ballad that reflects on our past and captures the sense of nostalgia we feel.
Elsewhere, there is much to explore and reference. Grace draws musical pictures as you listen, whilst the darker vibe on Declining, which belies its upbeat bounce with dark, melancholic lyrics, sources various personal experiences from depression and mental health. For me, there is a tinge of the Manic Street Preachers in this song, with the vibrant riff that drives the song forward, contrasted by the lyrical implications.
Political commentary is something Scarlet Rebels are fully committed to, and their lyrics to How Much Is Enough hit right in the feels. A hard-hitting question about the thousands struggling whilst the fat cats get richer resonates deeply.
It’s slightly unnerving that as I write this review the streets of the UK have been smouldering due to unrest. Streets Of Fire, led by another CJ riff of gargantuan proportions, has a reflection on society that is prophetic in the extreme. It is almost cinematic in presentation, and as the band say, “It’s a definite anthem with ’80s rock influences, making it one of those songs to add to your workout playlist.”
And for a final flourish, My House My Rules, has Ricky Warwick’s mark all over it. A ripping, punky rocker, it is the perfect high to complete the album, with a stomping riff that says everything you need to know.
Where The Colours Meet is both accessible and a grower. You may dismiss Scarlet Rebels as generic hard rock in a world saturated by mediocrity.
But spend time with this release, explore and listen to the nuanced shifts of pace, and absorb the messages in the words. You will discover one of the best albums you will hear all year.
Scarlet Rebels – Where The Colours Meet can be pre-ordered from here.
