“Going, Going, Gone!” by Shapes & Colors, Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Shapes & Colors formed in 2011 after members from a group called Aria Aesthetic combined with the vocalist Travis Bobier from Search the City as well as musicians from other bands. The Troy, Michigan- based group disbanded in 2018 after releasing several singles, three EPs, and an LP, which is not available on streaming services. Following the band's break up, members of Shapes & Colors went on to form the band CXMPASS, though the group only has one song available, "The Focus," released in September of last year. Today's song is the third track on the band's final, self-titled EP.

I KNOW I PROMISED YOU THE MOON. In their short discography, cynical listeners could point out how the upbeat throwback to late '00s emo seems derivative of the band's influences. Their 2015 EP, produced by Aaron Sprinkle, and their last work, produced by Kenneth Mount and Zach Odom writers for Mayday Parade and All Time Low, may seem like a shadow of the more successful, more popular bands. At their worst, Shapes & Colors songs can feel a bit redundant. But at their best, we hear Travis Bobier's soaring lead vocals, dashing in and out of the same register as the guitars. There are three songs that Shapes & Colors sound at their best. The first is their 2016 lead single from Love / Sex / War, "Drifting." The second is the track that comes before "Going, Going, Gone!" "Jackie & Jim," a song that seems to be grounded in purity culture in its critique of a couple who is "too drunk to love" each other, yet tries to make it work. "Going, Going, Gone!" hits the sweet spot of what Shapes & Colors does best. Lyrics recalling an adolescent relationship that the speaker tried to make work, but it was doomed to fail, as most young relationships are. In the two songs, "Jackie & Jim" and "Going, Going, Gone!" we get a portrait of a stubborn young man. In "Going," the man is younger, and in "Jim," he is older. In "Going" youth and hormones are the only thing guiding these mistakes, in "Jim" it's alcohol and addiction.

BEFORE DECEMBER TURNED TO JUNE, I SWORE THAT I LOVED YOU. In an interview with Behind the Stage Magazine, the band talks about the first albums they bought and their musical influences. Unsurprisingly, singer Travis Bobier said that his parents bought him *NSYNC's self-titled album, but said that he bought Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory with his own money. In fact Bobier talks about his pop influences. Besides being a fan of U2, he says that he listened to "a lot of Madonna[,] a lot of Celine Dion, a lot of really great female vocalists and male vocalists for that matter but a lot of 80’s and early 90’s music.” The rest of the band cited punk and classic rock bands--Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Green Day's American Idiot, Relient K's Two Lefts Don't Make a Right...But Three Do. Shapes & Color was exactly what I wanted from a punk rock band when I was growing up: hard rock backing delicate, pop vocals. While Shapes & Colors, or Search the City for that matter, may not pull that sound off all the time, the clear mash-up of influences can make their music interesting, much in the way of Falling Up's first album or the poppier moments of Anberlin.

Read “Going, Going, Gone!” by Shapes & Colors on Genius.