VIA PRESS RELEASE | A late and very welcome addition to the end-of-year releases, “Dandelion” sees Queen Colobus fully lean into their role as one of the UK’s most inventive jazz-pop outfits. The EP is a restless, mind-melting listen, one that refuses neat structures or genre boundaries, instead stitching together UK jazz, indie grit, and flashes of math-rock audacity with remarkable confidence.
Led by Welsh saxophonist and vocalist Beth Hopkins, Queen Colobus thrives in the tension between control and chaos. Across “Dandelion,” soothing melodic passages are frequently interrupted by jagged riffs, elastic grooves, and moments of raw emotional release. Hopkins’ vocal performance sits at the centre of it all: devastatingly honest, vulnerable one moment and ferocious the next, guiding the band through songs that feel both cathartic and confrontational.
Second single “Flare” acts as a sharp entry point into the EP’s world. Built on angular rhythms and emotive guitar lines, it captures a feeling of being overwhelmed with striking clarity. Its shifting form mirrors its lyrical themes, moving from tightly wound tension into a chaotic middle section that feels deliberately unmoored, a sonic depiction of drowning in noise and emotion before resurfacing, bruised but intact.
What makes “Dandelion” particularly compelling is its refusal to settle. Just when you think you’ve grasped its shape, it veers elsewhere. The angular grooves of “Flare” sit unexpectedly alongside the sprawling eight-minute epic “I Grow Wearier,” a track that stretches time and patience in the best possible way. Horns, fractured rhythms, and slow-burning intensity unfold without concern for convention, proving the band’s confidence in letting ideas breathe—or combust—on their own terms.
“Dandelion” doesn’t aim to please everyone, and that’s precisely its strength. It’s bold, unpredictable, and emotionally exposed, an EP that does exactly what it wants, and does so brilliantly.
“Dandelion” is in stores now.
