I See Orange Pining For Apollo

If spring saw Swindon’s premier rock trio I See Orange breaking new ground on a US tour, autumn brings with it their first full length album, Pining For Apollo; prepare…

I See Orange come at you loud and proud. It’s driving rock versus edgy grunge, but unafraid to test the boundaries of either subgenre as they form foundations into commercial rooms fit for The Cranberries or The Cardigans. Yet they never abandon their idiosyncratic image of dolls and gore, nor their distorted power chords and dark focussed themes of apathy and alienation with sassy overtones. Pining For Apollo was released yesterday, and proves this, professionally.

I See Orange match with a chemistry every band must envy. Formed in 2022 when frontgirl Giselle, originally a folk-pop singer-songwriter moved here from Mexico, and an impromptu rehearsal session with Cameron and Charlie established potential magic. Inspired by nineties and millennial alt-rock, they add their own unique post-grunge flavour.

Recorded at Western Audio Studios, produced, mixed and mastered by Claire Sutton, rolling drums kick us into Pining For Apollo, a minute until the full force of I See Orange hits you in the face, and shakes your bones. Thirteen solid tracks of dynamite follow, and, unlike the rising and falling template of grunge, I See Orange rarely comes up for air. Velvet Scars is a downtempo exception to this rule, leisurely it rolls out like the penultimate moodsetter on a setlist.  

There’s all the recent singles we’ve previously fondly reviewed, Mental Rot, La Bruja, and my personal fave, the playful anthem Doll Guts. With them and between them the songs are stylised, carving a definitive methodology. The band say “It is the introduction of our music and our band to the world. There’s nothing we love more than making music together and these songs are a compilation of our passion, effort, hope and pining for our dreams to materialise and become our reality.”

Feebleness is a prime example. Three tunes in, it breathes fresh air into I See Orange while retaining their common theme of doubt, debility and inferiority complex. Then the haunting La Bruja follows, subtly confident when hexed. The album as a whole is dark mien, erotic at times, it contrasts winsome with macabre and through adroit unification musically it swathes them all into an electric blast of sublime and fulfilling rock.

If the eleventh and twelfth tracks project with grunge fury, the finale offers something more delicate indie-folk with commercial viability. Nice, but I want I See Orange breaking new audiences gradually by not losing their edge, rather than falling through a mercantile pothole, because this album is a fantastic showcase to be savoured by a majority.     

Stream & Download ‘Pining For Apollo’ by I See Orange.

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