Color Palette – Zombie EP
From Washington, D.C., USA
Released November 6, 2025
Genre: Dream Pop / Indie Rock / Shoegaze
Between haze and heartbeat
With Zombie EP, Color Palette — the Washington D.C.–based project led by Jay Nemeyer — continues to evolve their lush blend of dream pop shimmer and indie rock pulse. Across seven tracks, the band leans into atmosphere without losing focus, crafting a sound that feels cinematic yet deeply personal. This release captures the moment between motion and stillness — when emotion lingers like smoke in the air.
A sonic palette painted in light and distortion
True to their name, Color Palette build their songs through layers: chiming guitars blur into waves of reverb, synths glow like streetlights through fog, and drums keep a heartbeat pace beneath it all. Every sound feels deliberate yet organic — a balancing act between texture and melody that defines their approach. There’s a clear shoegaze lineage here, but also something distinctively modern — a clarity that cuts through the haze, revealing a pop sensibility beneath the noise.
Zombie EP feels both vast and intimate, a soundtrack for long night drives or solitary walks under neon skies. The production is warm but haunting, full of echoes that feel alive. It’s music that moves forward while looking inward.
Lyrical undercurrents
The title track, “Zombie,” sets the tone — a meditation on numbness and renewal, the slow crawl of emotion through monotony. Throughout the EP, themes of isolation, longing, and existential drift emerge like ghosts: “Nights Alone” feels like a quiet confession, while “Anywhere at All” captures the restless need for connection amid detachment. Even the instrumentals and remixes reinforce the mood — not as filler, but as reimaginings that stretch the emotional field of the record.
Beneath the dreamy soundscapes, there’s a sense of confrontation — the desire to wake up from emotional paralysis, to feel fully again. Zombie EP isn’t about decay; it’s about revival through reflection.
Where it sits in their story
Color Palette has always lived at the crossroads of indie rock and dream pop, but Zombie EP feels like their most focused statement yet — a refinement rather than a reinvention. Nemeyer and his collaborators channel the melancholy sparkle of The Cure, the introspection of Beach House, and the widescreen energy of M83, yet the result remains unmistakably their own. The EP’s mix of emotional depth and sonic openness positions it as one of the band’s most cohesive and resonant works to date.
Final thoughts
Zombie EP is an exploration of stillness, inertia, and emotional awakening. It doesn’t explode — it seeps, it resonates, it stays. Each song feels like a pulse returning to life, each echo a reminder that even numbness has texture.
Dreamy, layered, and quietly intense, “Zombie EP” is proof that Color Palette continues to paint in tones that shimmer long after the sound fades.
© Thusblog
