The Maccabees - Colour It In Album Review

The Maccabees
Colour It In
Album Review

If there were ever a sleeping giant that never got the recognition that they deserved then it would have to be The Maccabees. They released countless Singles, an EP, and a debut album and have played in every small to medium venue going in the UK.

The question has to be why? Which the answer has to be 'it's a bloody mystery to me' Unfortunately The Maccabees have fallen into the re-release trap, but not in the shape that other artists have done in the past. Rather than re-releasing their best Single, The Maccabees have gone one better (or not) depends which way you look at it. So the re-release of Colour It In (The debut album) with a couple of add ons.

Where to start? With the extras at the end of the album or the album, hmm lets start at the beginning. Good Old Bill is an acoustic number, which is showing the rest of the acoustic hugging lovers how to make a song sound good in this way. This is followed by a purely magic track in the shape of X-ray. This has amazing harmonies and some fantastic sounds, fitting that this was a limited release and hopefully only the true Maccabees fans got hold on. Might check eBay later to see how many people are cashing in on that fact!

If X-ray is not enough to wet the appetite then Latchmere will certainly get you hooked. Orlando's vocals on this will have the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end it really is that good. The madness about it all is that this track is about a wave machine.

Naturally First Love is a quality track and is backed up by three B-sides that are part of the extras on this album. Before the extras Colour It In finished with Lego and yes it is about Lego.

The extras are not really that great, basically if you have got the Singles then you already have most of the alleged extras because five out of the six are B-sides. That's a downer and ironically one of the B-sides is actually the album title track, which seems a little bizarre. Maybe what spurred the re-release of this album was the success of the Single Toothpaste Kisses, and the fact that it got so much airplay thanks to being on the Samsung advert.

Although this album should not of been re-released it doesn't hide the fact that it is a good album. The Maccabees should be recognised more, and hopefully on the back of that 'Television Advert' people might start taking notice.

Mark Moore