8/10

There’s a certain type of bravery in standing in your own wreckage and choosing to sing from the ruins. With 'Viole(n)t Colour', VC Pines revisits the emotional wreckage of the past year, and turns it into art that glows from the inside out. This is the sound of someone scraping themselves off the pavement and pressing record.

Jack Mercer, the soul behind the moniker, has long walked the tightrope between intensity and vulnerability. On this new EP, he leans fully into the mess of burnout, heartbreak, and mental strain. The EP pulses with lived experience, worn raw and stitched back together with grace and grit.

Opener 'BREAK' sets the tone with fractured beauty, full of yearning and jagged emotion, while 'Chasing The Dragon' lurches through addictive loops both sonic and emotional. The standout 'Something In The Way' aches with the kind of honesty that can only come from trying, and failing, to forget. There’s no posturing here. These tracks are catharsis disguised as songs, full of deep sighs, desperate prayers, and midnight self-talks wrapped in brooding instrumentation and dusky soul.

VC Pines’ signature blend of alt-soul, R&B, and lo-fi indie remains intact, but there’s a deeper sense of intention now. The production allows for moments of breath and collapse. It’s unhurried and full of shade, like a film that knows silence can be louder than dialogue.

What makes 'Viole(n)t Colour' especially compelling is Mercer’s unique sensory lens. His synaesthesia influence the mood and shapes the palette entirely. This EP doesn’t try to be a manifesto. It’s something quieter, a document of survival. In a world demanding constant motion and productivity, 'Viole(n)t Colour' dares to pause and say: I was not okay, and that’s where this started.

With more music on the horizon, VC Pines stands at a powerful intersection of fragility and force. 'Viole(n)t Colour' may be born from burnout, but it marks the beginning of something burning bright.