There was another fundamental shift in the Bops after the previous album of mourning and remembrance of the tragic passing of ladies dear friend Steve Zinn. Their lyrics on all the previous albums contained many positive, upbeat themes, but also many with a very sarcastic tone (such as some of my favorites "Fish To Fry" and "Your Head's Too Big"). Starting with "The Color Album" they became almost entirely positive, even up to the point of love songs from the perspective of two cats on future albums. They never said so anywhere that I'm aware of, but I believe that they meant it when they said of Zinn "He reminds us everyday to be totally rad!". I have to admit that I kinda miss the bite of some of the first three albums, but that doesn't diminish the fact that every song on "The Color Album" is a lovely piece of music. The obvious theme of this is that each song represents a color of the rainbow.
The opening track represents red, at least that's the only connection to color I can find with "Heart On My Sleeve" (the rest of the songs on this EP are much more clearly identifiable as color-themed). This song is charming and whimsical
This is followed by "Under The Orange Sun", which was one of the songs from this EP that they performed on that sweltering night of July 29th 2009 at the Aladdin Theater in Portland as mentioned in my previous review. Again, charm and whimsy abound, but also a new trend in Abby's playing begins to emerge here. She has become by this time absolutely fabulous at being her own bass player. This will become even more apparant on the next album
Then comes "Lemon Tree", this actually really reminds me of their opening act at the magnificent aforementioned 9/12/06 show that I recorded, Datri Bean, old-timey and fun.
Then comes the lovely "Evergreen", also very 1920's, this was played at the Aladdin that steamy day in Portland.
The mood then quiets down with "Blue I'm Blue", another song played at the 7/29/09 scorcher
Without any question, my favorite song from that show on that blistering night and my favorite song on The Color Album is "Indigo Eyes". This is one beautiful song, my friends...
The next color is Violet, which happens to be the seventh color of the rainbow, in this song titled "Seventh Ray"
Then, an homage to their hometown, smoggy Los Angeles, the ridiculously charming "Pink City".
Next up, the first full length album since 2008, "Love Letters" (2011)