Raleigh’s electronic alt-rock band released IMPERMANENCE_ in September and will return to the Triangle for a Durham show in November.
There are plenty of bands trying to revive the 2000s. Raleigh’s ColorMeKrazy! have a more interesting idea: bring the era’s emotional excess into a conversation with the electronic music that came after it.
The band’s own press kit traces its beginnings to 2023, when vocalist and producer Mia Brunal joined forces with guitarist and recording engineer Tom Detrick. Their reference points stretch from hyperpop artists including 100 gecs and Charli XCX to emo bands such as My Chemical Romance, Senses Fail, and Taking Back Sunday. Guitarist Drew Hutchins later became part of the group’s core. On paper, those influences could produce a spectacular mess. In ColorMeKrazy!’s case, the tension between them is the point: music made for people who want a glossy hook and a reason to scream along.
Their latest release, IMPERMANENCE_, arrived September 8. Despite the title’s appearance on the band’s website as a featured track, the release is a three-song project, pairing “IMPERMANENCE_” with “BIDE_” and “PRESSURE_.” Its credits show Brunal, Detrick, and Hutchins involved across the material, with Dan Saldarriaga credited as a coproducer. American Theory appears on “BIDE_.” For anyone discovering the band through one song, there are two more waiting behind it.
That makes ColorMeKrazy! especially interesting as a live prospect. The band’s influences belong to two traditions that have always depended on audience participation: electronic pop’s immediate physical pull and emo’s invitation to feel everything at full volume. The question for a show is how those impulses meet when there is a band, a crowd, and no skip button.
Triangle listeners will have a chance to find out on November 21 at The Pinhook in Durham, where ColorMeKrazy! are listed alongside Weymouth, Snowblinder, and Holloway Drive. Before that, the group is scheduled to play Emo Prom at Capone’s in Johnson City, Tennessee, on October 24. The Durham bill is also worth arriving early for: four regional acts in one room offer a much better view of a scene than an algorithm can.
The phrase “the scene is back” gets thrown around so often that it has lost most of its meaning. ColorMeKrazy! offer a more useful question. What happens when the people raised on emo take everything they learned there, add the sounds of a different internet age, and make something of their own in Raleigh? IMPERMANENCE_ and the upcoming Durham show are two places to start looking for an answer.