As responsible for the cultivation of a mood as any of the adjacent lyrics are, the main riff in Colony House’s hot new single “Cannonballers” is an intricate part of the cocktail these rockers are shaking up for fans this October. “Cannonballers” isn’t steeped in bass-heavy indulgences, but were it not outfitted with a staggered bottom-end swing, I’m not sure that it would feel like the suffocating, inescapably seductive statement piece that it does today.
Colony House sounds like a crew who have something big to say here, and no matter which perspective you break this new song down from, you’re bound to walk away with plenty of respect for the band’s artistic credibility.
There isn’t a lot of percussive emphasis in this single, but with the physical nature of the vocal penetrating the flow of the bassline on a near-constant basis, there’s no need for any additional intensity from the drums. The lead singer here might not be a household name, but he’s already figured out one of the most important elements that separate the big names in rock from the scrubs; captivating his audience through a relationship with the instrumentation as much as he does poetry. The music is incredibly effective here, which isn’t something I can say for every pop song out right now.
I feel a lot of live potentials when I listen to “Cannonballers,” and not because of the chill-inducing friction between the low-end sounds and the sturdy vocal delivery at the top of the mix. Even at low volumes, Colony House’s performance here has an anthemic vibe that tells me they could crush it in a stadium setting just as well as he could a small club in the heart of the city. This artistry has more of a progressive bend than it does a throwback energy, but for the period in which they’re entering the spotlight, this is hardly a negative trait.
You don’t have to be the world’s biggest rock fan to dig what Colony House is throwing down in “Cannonballers,” but for those of us who have been following the genre’s storied underground for a long time, his arrival should be celebrated as that of another important source in 2022. There’s never been a more lucrative time to get into this game, and with the kind of chops that this young group of musicians is showing off in this new single and its music video, it would be foolish to think that Colony House isn’t going to go places a lot sooner than later.
