Following ‘Superstar’ and ‘LOL’, ‘Overtime’ is the third single Rainbow Kitten Surprise are releasing, teasing their first full-length album in six years – Love Hate Music Box, due out 10 May 2024. For fans, this has been an agonisingly long wait. For the band, it has been a period of struggle: mental health problems, illness, tour cancellations, and frontperson Ela Melo’s transition.
Emerging from these trials and tribulations, Rainbow Kitten Surprise is different: it is clear that they’re experimenting with their sound. ‘Overtime’ is far mellower than a lot of their discography. It is easy to see the influence of producer Konrad Snyder, who has worked in the past with Noah Kahan and Stephen Sanchez, in the gentle instrumentals coupled with soft vocals from Melo, accompanied by Kacey Musgraves. The sounds melt together, creating a tender and melancholic atmosphere that adds a real poignancy to the heartfelt lyrics exploring the quiet sadness of a relationship that has perhaps run its course, though it lingers and blurs lines. Vulnerable is the best descriptor for this track. Melo opens the song with a tentative question: “When I call you up can I call you love?”. Later on in the chorus, she adds the following: “I love you but it hurts / It’s over and it’s not / I guess it’s overtime then”. Suddenly, painfully, the metaphor of the title falls into place. Overtime – a temporal space beyond a defined timescale – embodies the strange state of after, in this case, after the end of a relationship. It’s a painful place to be, devoid of answers and rules and a clear-cut way out. “Isn’t this some shit?” Melo asks, before deciding to “call it what it is”. Rainbow Kitten Surprise has a real talent for imbuing rather simple lyrics with a deep sense of pathos: there is something incredibly touching here, bound to resonate with most listeners on a personal level.
Melo has one of the most unique voices I have ever heard. She has a beautiful, rich tone with an aurally satisfying twang that rushes to the fore, overlaying the instrumentals. Seven-time Grammy-winner Musgraves is able to hold her own for the second verse, with a breathy, sweet and clear voice that adds a moving child-like quality to the song. The highlight of the track is when Melo and Musgrave sing the chorus together, their voices weaving together seamlessly to create a pleasantly soothing and full sound. Musgraves is Rainbow Kitten Surprise’s first feature, and though the combination of the North Carolina-born quartet’s indie-rock and her folk-pop seems strange on paper, it feels like it was meant to be.
Ela Melo explained how the collaboration came about: “I really believe in serendipity. I wrote ‘Overtime’ on a Saturday, met Kacey the following Monday, and got up the nerve to ask if she’d be down to lay down some vocals for it on Tuesday. It’s the first time we’ve had a feature on an RKS song and we’re still pinching ourselves that it’s her.”
Though some fans have criticised the band for what they perceive to be a move towards the mainstream, I would argue that though ‘Overtime’ is a fresh hybridisation of genre and sound, it still contains the essence of Rainbow Kitten Surprise as a band who have always found harmony in unpredictable places, teaming strong, effervescent instrumentals with earnest yet poetic songwriting to create eccentric masterpieces. On their official Instagram, Rainbow Kitten Surprise celebrate that their new album has “allowed [them] to evolve as musicians and humans and dive into new sounds and ideas”. If ‘Overtime’ is anything to go by, Love Hate Music Box promises to be an exciting listening experience.
Words by Jui Zaveri
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