The Five Colors is the first full-length effort from Chicagoan post rock/ambient/electronica/something/something band Bridges of Königsberg. Released online with nifty ‘name your price’ tag, with a physical release to follow shortly, The Five Colors is a lush expanse of rich melody and an affinity for the prettier ends of the post rock spectrum. Dotted with several gleaming piano led passages and pristinely placed electronic textures, Bridges of Königsberg have mustered up a heady oeuvre to lay down as their debut album.

While the record is bustling with many extra, ancillary elements the guitars still provide the bulk of the sound with The Five Colors being mostly instrumental. The sporadic vocals buzz in and out at various points of the album, serving mostly as brief swerves in the flow, but never disruptively so. The Five Colors maintains, for its near one hour running time, a natural and organic cadence, which marks the album’s greatest strength.

On the title track, vocalist Paul Petrosyan creeps in with a vague Mike Patton-like flavour in his voice meanwhile on the shamelessly poppy vibes of ‘Feathers Wrapped In Metal’, he’s vocally leading the track stronger than ever.

The fluidity is marked by the myriad tools used, all locking in together with an invigorating precision. ‘Number Seven’, another instrumental outing, runs along in almost typical but no less breath-taking fashion with a heady scaling milieu that eventually swerves once again, in a strangely pleasing way, fizzling out into an abrupt close. It makes for the concluding chapter of ‘Have You Ever Even Seen A Forest’, with its wonderful concluding quality, rounding off the record with all loose ends tied up.

Drop-d Rating: 7/10

Bridges of Königsberg