IT'S nigh on impossible to put Colourmusic's sound into a box and label it.

The spiel I was sent prior to speaking to the band described their music as like "musical walls that must be climbed" and if you understand the meaning of that youre a better man or woman than me.

When I asked frontman and co-founder Ryan Hendrix for his view he put it simply: "We really make music influenced by colour."

A straightforward, 'does what it says on the tin' kind of answer, but one that left me still no nearer solving my conundrum.

"Colour sets the emotional tone of a record without giving any genre distinctions," he explained further.

"So for Pink we asked what emotions are created by the colour pink and then how we can express those colours through music.

"As a song writing technique it really works. Even if I wasn't in Colourmusic, I'd still use this technique to create music."

So are they creating for themselves first and fans second?

"Absolutely," says drummer Nick Ley. "There is a real sense of control and power when you've made a piece of music fills a hole you didn't know you had. You love it so much that no one else's opinion or bad review could touch it. That's what this record is to us."

"Keen observation," adds Hendrix. "Basically, we wanted an album for ourselves as listeners. Fans of us I think will be people who listen to music like we do."

Listening to Pink is like eating a five-course meal with all the trimmings, all at once - your musical tastebuds overwhelmed by a cornucopia of richly-layered sounds.

"We wanted to make an album you could exercise to," said Hendrix. "Really good exercise music obviously has to have a lot of intensity, but it also crucially needs to have real heart to be taken seriously. I used to listen to electronic music or metal, but those genres easily get weighed down by the rules of their game.

"In the last minutes of an intense workout you need something that is totally liberated to give you that extra ten per cent."

The band has played the UK before, but are looking forward to returning.

"As recording goes, we make the albums we want to make for ourselves, but as a live band, we require an audience," said Ley. "It's the other member really and can determine how the show goes.

"We'll definitely kick-start the conversation, but it's that give and take, the screaming and sweating together that makes a great Colourmusic show. I'm really looking forward to those."

Colourmusic also welcome fans of beards to their gigs, though their hirsuteness is more by accident than design.

"Personal hygiene on tour is tough enough as it is so eliminating the need for a razor and time to shave is easy," said Ley. "For me, I'm not so much growing a beard as I am just not shaving.  And I have a damn fine beard if I do say so myself."  For ticket details contact: The Cluny, 36 Lime Street, Ouseburn, Newcastle, NE1 2PQ, or call 0191-230 4474.