Colaars - Wood Arsenal

By: Joel Frieders

In the past few years I've taken a piece of sandpaper to my musical tastes and I've found that the shit I used to find too raw is actually starting to find a better seed in my listening habits. Back when I was in high school and in and out of bands, I had a distinct appreciation for specificity and an almost elaborate version of complexity. Now that I look back on it, I think it was the pot trying to convince me that the musicians I had a hardon for had to be the ultimate in technical excellence in order for me to vouch for them.

Then just a few years back I fell in love with this band called Elie Milano. They broke up, of course, because they were too awesome and I loved them too fucking much, but their musical crispness was in stark contrast to their vocal delivery. But I was hooked, and I fell fucking hard for those muthafuckers.

In addition to Elie Milano, I started to pay attention to the innately British pop punk sounds of Arctic Monkeys, with their shrill Telecaster riffage and their bop-along drum/bass syncopation. It wasn't just fucking defiant, with their vocals splayed lackadaisically over a bed of perfect fucking pop, it had an almost hypnotizing aspect to it when you heard the two smooshed together.

The band Colaars are the distinct marriage of those two sounds, and I couldn't be fucking happier about discovering them.

Colaars sound like the specific pairing of Arctic Monkeys on rhythm, any of my favorite post rock groups on lead guitar, and the lazy perfection of Elie Milano's half shout/half layered yell of a fucking vocal delivery. Colaars inspire your mature side with precise and deliciously clean guitar tones, your rebellious side with their slap bap slap drumming, but it's your neck that takes the biggest beating as you let the vocal yell transport you to that pub where you're nodding your head too fucking fast to merely sip your beer, so you occasionally pound the muthafucker to make up for lost time.

Wood Arsenal sounds, simultaneously, like the post rock/pop band I wished I'd heard when I first discovered Elie Milano, and the band I kind of wish Arctic Monkeys turned out to be, versus the sallies they turned into. There's something about fucking awesomely intense guitar work with a yelled vocal that doesn't distract from its insanity, but rather accepts its skill as being a gateway between your old ass and your young fucking ass.

Colaars make me want to fucking smoke shitty weed out of a homemade aluminum foil pipe, but then stop myself right before the lighter meets the brown and replace it with a well maintained chillem packed to the gills with shit only a government official could slang you.

Find this band, fucking enjoy them. I just doodled an anarchy symbol on a TPS report bro. Youth meets maturity bro bro.