Normally I’d be wary of adding a 2019 track to such prestigious and long-standing company. However, few songs in my life have had as immediate and profound of an impact as “Colorless.” From the moment I first laid ears upon it, I knew it would be the epicenter of Blushing – a dreamy, romantic, and existential tour de force of an album. “Colorless” is melancholic but powerful, as it mourns lost love with the unrivaled potency of passages such as “these days I’m terrified of silence, my thoughts unbearable in the quiet”, “now I can’t see you…were we colorless anyway?”, and “I’m never falling out of love, I fear.” Even though pretty much all of Blushing serves as Aaron Marsh’s lyrical masterpiece, the aura of this track is especially poignant – it’s capable of reducing anyone enduring a breakup, death, or other form of loss to tears.
The track slowly builds to a cathartic release of energy, this relatively brief but downright explosive guitar solo that feels like a personal breaking point. Its impact is only magnified by Marsh’s prelude of “when a colorless world goes dark”, which in context feels like an admission of total despair – it’s basically akin to saying that without the mysterious woman around whom Blushing‘s themes revolve, that everything’s gone dark. Finally, the mayhem sticks a soft landing on this cloud of swelling strings and brass, as Aaron laments, “Ohh-ohh, I can’t save myself.” The entire song is a marvel to behold, and the sheer energy that emanates from it is enough to send aftershocks throughout the rest of Blushing – leaving listeners still trembling in its reverberations long after the album’s run time has expired.
It’s difficult to put my appreciation for “Colorless” into words. It’s one of most spellbinding, depressing, and romantic things I’ve ever heard. It contains heartbreaking lyrics, gorgeous melodies, sweeping strings, and an epic peak. If someone were to enter a laboratory and engineer a song specifically for me, it might end up sounding exactly like this. That kind of appreciation rarely wanes, so I feel as confident as ever enshrining this sad, beautiful little thing in infamy. It may be a new song, but it’s already among the decade’s best.
