The Color Forty Nine – ‘A Whisper’ [Album Review]

San Diego-based alt-rock outfit The Color Forty Nine releases their new long player, A Whisper, a collection of textural songs recorded and mixed by the band in their home studios and at Estudio Noviembre with Grammy-winning engineer Dave Parra.

The Color Forty Nine’s members have played with projects like little white teeth, the Black Heart Procession, the Album Leaf, maquiladora, System’s Officer, and Manuok.

After a record release show at the San Diego Museum of Art on March 1st, the band will embark on a tour of Japan in March and April, with dates in Mexico and the US to follow in April.

The band’s sound is hard to pigeonhole. It’s cinematic yet almost austere, evoking expansive brooding colors and, at times, a prescient lonesomeness. And for some reason, their music summons up impressions of murmuring prog-rock.

Of the nine tracks on A Whisper, highlights include the opening track, “The Whisper,” an evocative song revealing tints of melancholy, as well as shadowy mystery. The vocals, a low, slightly rumbly tenor, project portentous surfaces, akin to waiting stoically for what is about to transpire.

The undulating, swaying motion of “We Send Satellites,” with its low, exhaling harmonies, conveys a drifting-through-space feeling that’s emphasized by low, dreamy vocals.

The Color Forty Nine, photo by Becky DiGiglio

One of the best tracks on the album, because of its alluring, pulsating rhythm, is “Bathed In The Light,” a personal favorite due to its feeling of lingering warmth and stealthy buoyancy. The piano intro to “I’m Getting By” musters memories of a soundtrack to a silent movie from the 1920s, followed by flowing into a gliding, lightly sparkling melody topped by soft, breathy vocals.

“I’m getting by / Getting by / Just fine / Towing the line again / I know / There’s a light ahead / I’m getting by / Getting by / Just fine / I can feel it.”

The final track, “Afternoon Train,” features an almost-bright plucking guitar crowned by spoken word vocals narrating a quixotic encounter.

In keeping with its title, A Whisper radiates magical, sighing textures that suffuse the songs with a yearning for the unattainable.

A Whisper Track Listing:

1, The Whisper
2. We Send Satellites
3. Bathed In The Light
4. I’m Getting By
5. Maybe We’re Flying
6. Jubilee Street
7. 8 am
8. You Were There
9. Afternoon Train

Run Time: 33:10
Release Date: February 28, 2025
Record Label: Independent