EXCLUSIVE: Columbus Take You Track By Track Through New Album 'A Hot Take On Heartbreak'

With their second album, A Hot Take On Heartbreak, due out tomorrow (Friday 25 May), Brisbane trio Columbus are giving fans a sneak peek with this exclusive track-by-track through the entire record. 

Vocalist and guitarist Alex Moses takes you through the 10-track LP. 

Columbus will embark on an east coast tour in support of the new album; for a look at all of the venues and dates, click on theGuide.

don't know how to act

Opening the album is lead single Don’t Know How To Act. We chose it as the first single because it’s a fun, upbeat rock song with a beachy vibe, and represents where we wanted the band to go musically. We all love '90s rock and punk music and we tried to reflect that in this song. It’s a song about love and insecurity, and things being too good to be true.

care at all

Care At All is a more serious and darker rock song with a beachy vibe. This was one of the later songs written for the record, but it came together great in the studio. The gritty guitar parts and bouncy drums made it a fun song to record. Care At All deals with alcoholism, self-destructive behaviour and letting down people you love.

worn out this week

Worn Out This Week is a song which really helped define the future of Columbus’ sound. We all realised that a more alternative-rock sound was the direction we wanted to take the band. It was one of the first songs written for the record and helped define the direction for a lot of the others. It’s a bouncy rock song with a positive tone, but like much of the record, it plays with the juxtaposition between happier sounding music and melancholic lyrics. It’s about being in denial about mental health problems, telling everyone else you’re fine, and not doing anything to fix a situation you know is wrong.

feelin' Low

Feelin’ Low is a drivey song that was very fun to record. There’s a bunch of fun guitar parts, and we did a heap of takes recording feedback and weird noises in a sweaty vocal booth. It’s one of the darkest songs on the album musically and the lyrics also centre around depression, feeling lost in life and losing people you thought were friends.

give up

Give Up also plays along with the juxtaposition around upbeat music, but melancholic lyrics. The song evolved a lot from the demo process to the studio, with a few key changes and chop-changing of sections. With some of the more serious lyrics on the record, it speaks about loneliness, and finding hope in love after many failed relationships. There’s heaps of harmonies and fun little additions we added to the song, which make it one of our favourites.

woke up with a heart attack

This song was the first written for the record. I wrote Woke Up With A Heart Attack in my bedroom in early 2017. The tongue-in-cheek nature of some of the lyrics, and it’s poppier '90s sound originally made me think it wasn’t suited for Columbus, but once the album started coming together it seemed more than perfect.

It initially had some different lyrics, different guitar parts and was in another key but the base of the song was there. We re-worked it and started demo-ing it for the album, and it’s become one of our favourites. It’s a tongue-in-cheek love story with a self-deprecating nature.

piece of shit

This song was initially a joke pop rock song I recorded in my bedroom. It was supposed to be a funny, self-deprecating song about meeting someone wonderful, but knowing that you’re not good enough for them. We decided the song was going to suit the band, and we really had fun playing it. I re-wrote some lyrics, and we changed lots of parts, however some of the original guitars and keyboards are still the ones I recorded in my bedroom. This song differs the most from anything else we’ve ever done and it’s a standout on the record for that reason.

cut it out

Cut It Out is a dark song about watching someone you love go through a hard experience. It’s the heaviest song on the record, with a grunge vibe. It was fun to record, and offers the largest amount of angst in the album. I nearly blew out my voice a few times singing background vocals in the bridge, but we’re really happy with how the song came out.

difficult conversations

Difficult Conversations is a song about the falling out of a relationship, and about knowing that things with your partner are going to end. I wrote this song with our producer Joel Quartermain in his Melbourne apartment.

We wrote it on acoustic guitars, in his living room, but it translated really well into the band environment. It’s a longer and slower song compared to what Columbus’ has done before, and it features some piano and other layers of instrumentation.

feel this way

The last track on A Hot Take On Heartbreak is Feel This Way, a quiet acoustic song with a bit of piano. This song was recorded last minute, with many lyrics polished off on the day of recording. We worked it over with Joel in the studio right before tracking and just dived in. It was the last thing we recorded for the album. Feel This Way is a song about coming into love, and realising the way that you feel. It’s laced with insecurity, and the fear that things won’t work out.