Grouplove: The Return Of Rock 'n' Roll

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In "Colours," the L.A. rock band Grouplove makes wild, thrilling and above all joyful noise.

Courtesy of the artist

In "Colours," the L.A. rock band Grouplove makes wild, thrilling and above all joyful noise.

Grouplove may be a band of twentysomething musicians, but their sound hearkens back to a time when they were still in diapers: the lo-fi, acidic noise of classic early-'90s alternative rock. On its raucous debut single "Colours," the Los Angeles band builds on the quiet-loud-quiet dynamic pioneered by bands like Pixies. The track kicks off as a lo-fi folk-infused ditty — complete with acoustic guitar and unassuming boy-girl vocal harmonies — before blooming into a hot electric anthem, with a booming backbeat worthy of Dave Grohl and an unhinged guitar riff reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis.

Singer Christian Zucconi even seems to pay direct homage to Kurt Cobain, recalling an eerie, surrealistic nightmare about a man who commits suicide because "he couldn't face the truth." But there's a bright side to his miserable tale, and Zucconi seems wise enough to know that self-inflicted death isn't the only way out. "It's the colors you have," he howls. "No need to be sad / It really ain't that bad."

This has been a fairly bleak year for rock bands, with the charts largely dominated by pop stars like Ke$ha, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry. But Grouplove demonstrates with "Colours" that the genre isn't dead — and that plenty of aspiring musicians still make wild, thrilling and above all joyful noise with little more than a guitar and a fuzzbox.