Good Hands Bad Blood

Album Review

Not surprisingly for a band on the record label run by Stone Temple Pilots/Velvet Revolver frontman Scott Weiland, the Color Turning reveal some arena rock trappings on their debut full-length LP, Good Hands Bad Blood. Producer Doug Grean gives the recording a sound picture that overflows with ambient additions. Breathy mumbling and giggling voices, heartbeats, dripping water, all peek through here and there, and the quintet's instruments are given an echoing sheen with the extended decaying sounds wafting out into space, or into the rafters of the arenas such music is made for. Pink Floyd is certainly one influence, but with the effects put on the guitars, the music is also suggestive of U2 (notably on the opening tracks "Slow as Passing Cars" and "Where the Sky Ends") and R.E.M. (on "New Hooligan"). The Color Turning are capable of rocking out, but the bandmembers, including light tenor vocalist Steve Scavo, seem more comfortable conjuring dreamy musical moods. The real question in the band's future may be whether it has the stage ability to back up the music; it takes more to fill up those arenas than guitars with all their effects pedals working.