Julia Faulks’ new EP, “Colours”, doesn’t so much present a palette as it does the messy, satisfying work of mixing the paints yourself. It’s a six-song study in emotional reciprocity, a sonic accounting of what it costs to love and what it means to be loved in return.
Faulks operates in that murky, humid space she calls the “in-between,” where affection curdles into obligation and loyalty is tested not by grand gestures, but by the draining friction of daily life.
This is music about drawing lines in the sand. On “Red,” she diagnoses the exhaustion of becoming a depository for someone else’s gloom, a feeling so specific it’s almost a physical weight. Then, just as you’re settling into the melancholy, the brass on the defiant anthem “Dig Deep” kicks in.
It feels like the sudden, specific warmth of sun on your face after emerging from a long train tunnel. It’s the sound of choosing to stay, of deciding a connection is worth the fight. This dynamic tension is the EP’s core engine, powering the empowering, lock-turning finality of the kiss-off “Wait for You” and the quiet, bone-deep comfort of “Side by Side,” a gorgeous ode to the friends who are simply, reliably there.
What lingers most, however, are the moments of profound quiet. The ache of “Always There” perfectly captures that specific frustration of trying to explain a feeling that has no simple name—like attempting to describe the exact colour of twilight to a stranger over the phone.
It’s in these hushed corners, as on the dreamy closer “Sound of You,” that Faulks’ soul-pop confessionals become truly compelling. The EP isn’t a map through heartbreak or a simple celebration of love; it’s an audit of your own emotional inventory.
It leaves you not with answers, but with a better set of questions, wondering about the sonic tint of your own loyalties.
