Sean Lister Debut EP ‘The Colours of Space’

New ReleaseReview

Jun 29

Written By MONIKA SMITH

REVIEW BY: BEN LAMB

ARTICLE BY: MONIKA SMITH

'The Colours Of Space' is Sean Lister’s first instrumental release which is came out on June 18th 2021! The EP was written, recorded and arranged in his home studio (which he built from scratch) on the Gold Coast from 2018 to 2020.

Lister not only created the guitar tracks on the EP, but in the time of putting it all together he taught himself production, added the skills of writing drums, bass and keyboards to compliment his already accomplished skills on the guitar. This project required an extensive amount of commitment to reach the goals he set for himself to complete the EP we now have access to today.

Having to mix and master these tracks himself his home studio which was a steep learning curve for Lister the end results speak for themselves as all the instruments and productions tie in to a tight and flawless EP.

“The journey here has been a long one. I hadn’t played the guitar seriously for about 15 years before deciding to commit to achieving this life time goal. After building my home studio from scratch and teaching myself production, learning how to write drums, bass and keyboards to accompany my guitar, along with piecing together an interesting and exciting song structure has definitely been the hardest thing I’ve ever done musically.”

— Sean Lister

The Colours Of Space is the awesome first release by multi-instrumentalist, Sean Lister. Written, recorded and arranged over a two year period, it’s finally shared with the world. Lister’s unique blend of neo-classical with nu metal elements make his music memorable, and gives him a great opportunity to show off his impressive virtuosic guitar playing skills.

The EP opens with ‘Otherworld’ which transports the listener to the future with quirky sounds and ominous sounding instrumentation, it does a great job in subverting the listers expectations and showing the high quality of Lister’s song writing abilities. This quirky / futuristic ambience continues to the midpoint of the song, where we’re given the first opportunity of hearing Sean’s amazing talents on the guitar, this culminates in a phenomenal shredding outro, that gives guitarists like Joe Satriani and John 5 a run for their money.

Following on from this is ‘Death At Live Oak,’ a track that wastes no time getting to the guitar, with Sean showing listeners his confidence on the neck. This is a noticeably heavier track, mainly heard by the much more driving drumming, and an ongoing energy that doesn’t waiver throughout the 3 minutes and 22 seconds.

Closing the EP with the same futuristic vibe it started with is the aptly titled ‘When Martians Attack,’ a track that opens with some intriguing sounding keys / synths, that opens up the track for Lister’s guitar to come in. These instruments slowly build up together to a powerful climax that gives vibes of early thrash metal, and gives Sean a great opportunity to do some pretty terrific solo work. The Colours of Space is one of the best EP’s of 2021, and truly will cement Sean Lister as a talented musician in the Aussie music scene.

Filmed and edited in Brisbane, Australia by Adrian Golbey.