Colorama - Some Things Just Take Time (2017)

The project's first album in three years, Some Things Just Take Time is Colorama's seventh studio LP overall and, despite collecting unused songs written over a period of a decade, unlike any set in the psychedelic pop outfit's catalog. It's a spare, singer/songwriter affair by Carwyn Ellis, with production by Liam Watson and longtime collaborator Edwyn Collins. Ellis, a native of Wales, said that the songs were inspired by his admiration for American musicians, including the likes of Glen Campbell and Townes Van Zandt, as well as Tin Pan Alley and early R&B legends of vocal pop. Reflective and earnest throughout, the album relies mostly on voice, acoustic guitar, and light drums, with occasional strings and piano. Tracks range from the simple piano tune "Give It a Miss" and acoustic guitar love song "I Owe It All to You," to the elegantly countrified "Special Way" with its steel guitar, to the relatively expansive "In Your Memory." The latter offers a full combo, stringed instruments, and choral backing singers while remaining at heart a guitar ballad from the perspective of a trapped miner ("And I feel no fear in me/'Cause I'm at peace in your memory"). After nine original songs, the album closes with two covers: "Long Haired Doney," a graceful take on bluesman R.L. Burnside, and an intimate version of Sonny & Cher's "Baby Don’t Go." With simple but effective arrangements and songs about loving, leaving, and the passage of time, Some Things Just Take Time is a gem of stripped-down songcraft.