AMG Review of Drop You Vivid Colours

Ian Martin
All Music Guide

Japanese indie band Luminous Orange had demonstrated their love for late-'80s/early-'90s British shoegazer bands clearly enough on previous albums, going as far as covering "Chelsea Girl" by Ride on 1998's Sugarcoated, but that love reaches its highest expression on Drop You Vivid Colours. From the opening notes of the opening title track Luminous Orange painstakingly mimic the guitar sounds of My Bloody Valentine, with Takeuchi Rie's vocals floating, barely decipherable in the background, more aural texture than vocal. Nevertheless, while there is clearly a strong element of pastiche in this album's overall sound, it would be foolish to let that overshadow the talent and creativity that has gone into individual tracks. Third track "The Sky" welds together three or four separate melodies into a single exhilarating whole, "Turbo R" is an earsplitting punk rock assault that nods more to Sonic Youth than My Bloody Valentine, and the gentle "Utatane no Hibi" shows that the lounge sounds of the contemporary Tokyo indie scene haven't been lost on Luminous Orange either. Compared to previous albums, Drop You Vivid Colours is far more richly produced, with multiple layers of sound giving it a texture and depth that previous albums lacked without compromising the rawness and intensity. Indeed, on final track "Rusty Wheel" the band make it clear that they see no reason why melody, intensity, and furious noise should be considered mutually exclusive.