Album Review: The Decay by Colder Bones (by Emma Prew)

Matt Awbery is a musician from Cheshire, previously performing under his own name and now using the name Colder Bones. He describes his sound as sad, punk-influenced acoustic music and has just released his first EP, under the new guise, titled The Decay and recorded by Steve Millar, AKA Arms & Hearts. The EP is out on Local Colour Records  and is available now from Bandcamp – pay what you want.

The first of three tracks on The Decay is titled I Still Believe (and is not a cover of the Frank Turner song of the same name). The first thing that initially stood out to me when listening to I Still Believe was just how distinct Matt’s voice is. His vocals reminded me a lot of The National’s Matt Barninger – and probably a few other musicians that I can’t quite put my finger on – but either way, great voice. Vocally and musically there is certainly a sad tone to it but the lyrics hint at optimism a little – ‘Well I still believe that best friends succeed while people like you tear through, Til the end.’

I’m Sorry, the second track, opens with a stop-start repeated acoustic guitar riff. I must admit I had to check that the song hadn’t just stopped playing but it certainly builds a sense of atmosphere. The stop-start style continues throughout the majority of the song with the melancholic vocals joining the guitar, between pauses – ‘I’m sorry, That I was not enough, I’m sorry, That I am not enough.’ Towards the end of the song there is a stretch of acoustic guitar and vocals without the disjointed feel – sort of what the rest of the song was building towards.

The last track on The Decay is a track of the same name… Decay. It’s probably the most stripped back of the three songs on the EP – if you can call a song on an acoustic EP stripped back! What I mean is that the acoustic guitar is fairly quiet and gentle with Matt’s vocals being the main emphasis of the song. There’s no denying that, as the man states himself, he is a writer of distinctly sad sounding songs but they are so full of emotion. ‘Tell me that it hurts, Tell me you’ve be crying, So that I can close my eyes…’

If sad acoustic music is your sort of thing then I suggest you check out Colder Bones on Facebook here.