"Scarlet Rebels make no bones about going straight for the FM-rock jugular": Trad rock tropes abound on Where The Colours Meet

Welsh retro-leaning rockers Scarlet Rebels keep delivering the traditional goods

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Scarlet Rebels: Where The Colours Meet cover art
(Image: © Earache Records)

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Having breached the Top 10 of the UK album chart with their second album, See Through Blue, Llanelli quintet Scarlet Rebels make no bones about going straight for the FM-rock jugular on this follow-up – even if there isn’t a lot of FM around to air their arena-friendly choruses these days. 

Trad-rock tropes abound from the moment Secret Drug starts by renting out AC/DC’s thumping rhythm section and borrowing a big fat Def Leppard chorus. 

Scarlet Rebels - Secret Drug (Official Video) - YouTube Scarlet Rebels - Secret Drug (Official Video) - YouTube
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Streets Of Fire has a 1985 feel to it that will press potent nostalgic buttons, and the title track even includes a key change. 

We also get the obligatory pace-changing ballad as Elles Bailey duets on Out Of Time, but the band would perhaps be wise to keep one foot on the accelerator while their eye is on the pop-rock prize, as the adrenalised My House My Rules suggests they don’t need to court us with choruses the whole time in order to thrill.

Johnny Sharp
Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock.