PREMIERE: COLIBRIUM // Carried EP

Apr 30, 2019 / WORDS Amy Smith / Track By Track

Adelaide’s Colibrium have been making waves in their local scene for a few years now.

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Their debut album, 2016’s In Balance, saw them receive a nomination for best heavy artist in the 2016 South Australian Music Awards and score many coveted support slots including the likes of Leprous, Thousand Foot Crutch, Hands Like Houses, Twelve Foot Ninja, Caligula’s Horse and more.

Three years later, Colibrium are back to capture your attention with new EP Carried. They have teamed up with Forrester Savell (Karnivool, Dead Letter Circus) to produce a rockin’ collection of songs. There really is something for everyone to enjoy with the EP featuring grunge balladry (Rain), 80’s inspired rock (Carried By The Words) and modern rock (Capture).

I Don’t Need You

This song is a pretty heavy lullaby that really is just about peeling away time-wasters posing as friends trying to help you out. They tend to make big promises and draw you in, flounder about, lead you astray and it’s a wholesome remedy to just piss them right off and move in a different direction. Never make time for time-wasters.

Capture

Capture is actually a song Chris wrote for an earlier band that was a seriously difficult part of his musical career. It was monstrously taxing on the dollar and the soul and in the end, the real reason for why for making music at all, in the old band, was lost in the grind of trying to perfect artwork that would sell to a huge market. Saying “capture the starlight to remind us why we’re here”, is just a reminder to the self that you’re doing this for the love of your craft, not to sell records.

Man

Colloquially known to the layperson as “What makes you feel like a man?” is pretty much the message delivered in the first line: “So you think you’re a man?” This was a nod to basically any bloke who understands that sometimes being a man can break you. Things that are fundamental and unchangeable. We harbour these tangles of masculine traits that both help us excel and can break our souls in doing so. If you don’t have this inner conflict, you merely think you’re a man. But it’s the current year, so …

Carried

This is a doozy. The song is actually written about itself. And it being played live by us. It’s an arrogant song, it knows it. But it doesn’t stop it being pretty pleased with itself. The lyrics pretty much describe how a song is written usually (whimsically), not with any inherent goal or specific intent, unless it’s political or personal in nature; the song in itself creates its own goal and meaning as it evolves. The song is then carried across the people by word of mouth and whatever means. Then comes the unflattering band experience before a show, et cetera. It’s a song written about itself. You get the picture.

Rain

This was definitely a more global affairs/political piece. Not really quite as relevant today as when the song was being written (during the spot of bother with ISIS and whatnot), nevertheless it can still hold with any war. Even those that seem the most evil as opponents bleed the same blood and have the same fears during the blaze. It was part of a trilogy called “Middle East”, along side “Middle East: The Awakening”, and “Middle East: Survive”. These songs will appear on the next album to complete the trilogy, or perhaps a separate release altogether.