Colony House Drops New “Cannonballers” Single/Video

The world of rock has never looked or sounded as diverse as it does today. From the electronica-influenced pop beats of an emergent post-chamber scene to the surreal, neo-psychedelic sounds of new crossover genres that have no names growing out of the west and east coast undergrounds the same, rock n’ roll music is embracing the strange like never before in 2022, leading to the advent of intriguing young players like those who comprise Colony House. Colony House’s new single “Cannonballers” challenges the aesthetical parameters of pop music and post-third-wave rock with a stylish brand of noir-like harmonies, and from my perspective, it’s one of the better indie dispatches out right now. 

The lead vocal is always the centerpiece in “Cannonballers,” but this isn’t because the instrumentation is somehow black and white in comparison to our singer’s colorful linguistics. Contrarily, there’s a lot of depth to the instrumental harmony forged under the percussive pulsations in the master mix – it’s both postmodern and rather spacy at the onset, but as we get deeper into the song, it becomes a catalyst for some of the limited catharsis we find outside the chorus. In this regard, “Cannonballers” is a little mathier than some audiences might be ready for (while others will accept it for the refreshing take on alternative rock it undeniably is). 

The production quality here is very slick but nothing that I would deem over the top, especially when taking into account the increased polish found on everything from Soundcloud alt-rock to the big retro riffs like those we’ve been hearing around the world for the better part of the last year. Similar to the content some of their foreign contemporaries have been trying to put out recently, Colony House’s sound has a very raw feel even at its most refined. 

There’s nothing rushed about the vocal delivery in “Cannonballers,” giving it a lot more in common with the deliberate nature of 90’s rock tracks, many of whom paved the way for modern music as it applies to a lot more genres outside of rock n’ roll alone. This isn’t meant as a shot at the Gen Z pop era – I’m a big fan of the experimentalism it’s yielding – but instead an acknowledgment of how familiar a framework Colony House is manipulating in this all-new release. They seem to know who they want to be in the studio, and more importantly, the kind of skillset they have to adopt to get to the top of the heap. 

Right now is a great time to be a pop fan, and independent bands like Colony House are the biggest reason why. This group isn’t wasting our time with a lot of watered-down concepts in “Cannonballers,” nor are they simply refashioning a style of play that was popularized by their biggest influences over a generation ago. This is a set of performers who want to blaze a real trail forward, and though they have still got a couple of rough edges that they’ll need to work on between now and their big break, they’re showing off more than a little potential in the fantastic new single that is “Cannonballers.” 

Mindy McCall