rickoLus
Underground EP
Bear Machine Records

Radical Face collaborator rickoLus (from now also known as Broken Tusk) grabbed my attention while visiting Europe (and Norway) with Radical Face last year. At the Oslo gig, I had to shop some his records (including this split single, plus his fine Troubadour album of 2013), which was quite eye and ear opener. The highly creative rickoLus is pounding out songs and records, and his new EP is another fine release. Trust me.

The Underground EP holds three new songs, opening with the fine title track. Like rickoLus (a.k.a. Richard J. Colado), or Broken Tusk! states: 'Over the past couple months I've been exploring singing and writing with my naturally lower range voice, which is not how I usually sing. These songs have felt different to me then what I've done as rickoLus, so I decided to present them under a whole new project called Broken Tusk. I've just released a few songs today on Bandcamp. Come have a listen...'. "Underground" is a joyous, upbeat, melodic yet low-blue song which grows better and bigger for every spin. Simply because this is comfortable, folky, pop music. "Sarah" is a calmer, (acoustic) guitar and piano-steered ballad type pop song, not far from Ben 'Radical Face' Cooper's pop alleys. It's clearly a love song to someone called Sarah (his daughter?). The closing "General Boarding" is a new song, which was written (partly/mainly) when he was on tour playing in the Radical Face band and performing in his other (old) band project The Little Books. It might be a song describing travelling and longing for home ('General Boarding' is what always is printed on plane tickets...). This track (well, in fact many of Colado's songs) has got some of the sentimental feel and mood as Sparklehorse (a.k.a. the late Mark Linkous) had back in the day. Underground EP holds a tasty triple of songs.

The three songs were written, recorded and performed by Rick Colado at Colado's Green Shed studio and the Bear Machine Studios. "Underground" was mixed by Colado, while "Underground" and "Sarah" were mixed/mastered by Ben Cooper. Colado is a man to watch out for and to check out, as he creates excellent songs and music. Go visit his Bandcamp sites, either if it's the rickoLus songs or the Broken Tusk stuff. Right now! We will get back to Broken Tusk next moonth. Rick: 'I've started revisiting old songs recently, some of them have been in my head for almost twenty years. I'm still writing all the time but I've been really wanting to record some of these old songs I felt have been left in the dust. This is the first instalment of this new/old endeavor. Enjoy!' Yes, like Rick says: Enjoy.

Copyright © 2016 Howard M. Popeye