The Colonnade are a Boston band with big ideas in a world of short attention spans. When the guitar-rock quartet completed debut album Femme earlier this year, the package and presentation of the 13-track LP was felt as grandiose as each song’s glimmering tone and soaring indie-rock-meets-arena-rock ambition.
So they divided Femme into three distinct “moments,” similar to that of an EP but with a constant narrative that could be broken up into chapters. Vanyaland is proud to premiere that first segment, the first five songs from Femme, via the Colonnade’s Bandcamp below. The opening salvo is led by standout track “Collegiate”, a swirling torrent of emotive sound and sparkling aughts-era indie rock that instantly posits as one of the better songs to come out of Boston this season.
“Once we finished the album,” says guitarist and co-producer Jordan Rich, “we realised we had these songs that told a story all of the way through but also worked as three different parts, each with their own vibe both lyrically and in terms of how they sounded, whether it be a heavier, quirkier, or more dreamy sound. We also wanted to have a few short interludes dispersed throughout that kind of acted like little vignettes so we’re using these at the beginning of each of the three parts. We’re calling them ‘moments’ and we’ve shot accompanying videos, which we hope capture the character of each of the three parts.”
But don’t call it a full-blown concept album. This isn’t the ’70s.
“That’s not to say that this is a concept album or three separate EP’s,” Rich warns. “They’re very much a part of a whole picture, but we realised that, as a new band, no one is really going to spend the time listening to a whole 13 track album in one go! So part of the reason for splitting it up was also to make it more digestible and to give ourselves three separate opportunities to introduce ourselves.”
Settle in with Femme’s first “moment” below, and check out the LP’s artwork and first teaser video, starring Michi Tassey and Alec Alabado.
