“I’ve seen so many shit bands throughout the year and often have found myself saying, ‘I can do better than that.’ So that’s what I’m doing. There’s a lot of bands that are almost there or just have no idea how to make something cohesive, or with swag, or literally anything that elevates the experience of just being people with instruments. So I gotta have a vision that’s better than the competition.”
That was Matthew Wainwright, frontman and principal songwriter for Rancho Cucamonga heavy shoegazers Cold Gawd, in an interview promoting 2022’s God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here, his band’s first album for the darkly stylish indie label Dais Records. It was a bold statement, borderline cocky, but Wainwright has consistently backed it up. Cold Gawd’s records are cohesive aesthetic statements. They have swag. At a time when shoegaze has become an oppressively trendy subgenre in rock, their music stands out from the buzzword-humping masses.
Despite Wainwright claiming the influence of hip-hop and R&B, which manifests in his band’s sick merch and overall sense of style — the gold fronts with “C” and “G” on the packshot for lead single “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name” were a brilliant touch — sonically Cold Gawd are not doing a lot to update the now-familiar formula of dream-pop merged with the low-end crunch of post-hardcore. But if they’re simply channeling a lineage that runs from My Bloody Valentine to Nothing and Whirr, man are they doing it well. New album I’ll Drown On This Earth is marvelously pretty, and it hits hard. True to its title, this is music you can submerge yourself in.
From the scream that carries us into opening track “Gorgeous” like a bird of prey sweeping over the landscape, Cold Gawd’s new LP is a gripping listen. At eight tracks spanning 35 minutes, it’s also concise enough to leave you wanting more. The tracklist more or less divides into two halves: First comes a torrent of glowing, crushing songs that prove Cold Gawd’s mastery of their aesthetic, then the homestretch presents a softer, quieter side of the band that proves they can be magnetic without the bombast. (The slow jam “Tappan” is almost unbelievably lush, while you could possibly trace “Nudism” back to Deftones’ embrace of Sade.) In terms of structure, it’s not unlike the way the back half of Radiohead’s The King Of Limbs disappears into darkness and quietude for a while before once more emerging into the light of day. But unlike The King Of Limbs, Cold Gawd fans will not have to argue about whether I’ll Drown On This Earth is a classic.
Wainwright’s other stated goal for Cold Gawd in that interview was to simply “add more beauty to the world” — not just a mundane prettiness but the kind of beauty that tears your attention away from the horrors of this world. I’ll Drown On This Earth succeeds in that capacity as well. The album is a major level-up for the band, partially thanks to vibrant production from Wainwright and Colin Knight that makes everything feel bigger, louder, and more immersive, full of visceral downbeats and eerie blasts of sonic color. But just as important as the high fidelity are the melodies that soar across these songs. Wainwright’s vocals, which present a more obviously human spin on the classic ethereal shoegaze vocal style, are always there to brighten up the noisy churn like a lighthouse in a storm. Often, the guitars get in on the action too, breaking away from the wall of distortion to skywrite patterns across the music’s upper register.
Wainwright’s lyrics complement this sound with an honest mix of hope and despair and a generous helping of dumbstruck love. Despite the title’s negative connotations — a sentiment that certainly manifests on songs like “Duchamp Is My Lawyer” — there are hints of optimism in lyrics like “Tried to pull my life together this time/ Could’ve failed, but I think it will come in time.” More often, he’s overcome with passion toward the object of his affection, who provides deep comfort when he’s there and inspires even deeper longing when he’s away. These are themes that lend themselves well to shoegaze’s inherent gauzy sensuality, and they saturate I’ll Drown On This Earth like the static that clings to every blown-out chord. By the time the album is finished, you may find yourself all starry-eyed too.
I’ll Drown On This Earth is out 8/30 on Dais.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds’ Wild God
• Coco & Clair Clair’s Girl
• Why Bonnie’s Wish On The Bone
• Jon Hopkins’ RITUAL
• Ty Segall’s Love Rudiments
• Oceanator’s Everything Is Love And Death
• Kneecap’s The Kneecap Film Soundtrack
• Big Sean’s Better Me Than You
• Enumclaw’s Home In Another Life
• The Bug Club’s On The Intricate Inner Workings Of The System
• Nails’ Every Bridge Burning
• Kehlani’s While We Wait 2
• John Legend’s Sufjan Stevens-produced family album My Favorite Dream
• Cal In Red’s Low Low
• Laurie Anderson’s Amelia
• Robert Glasper’s Code Derivation
• RZA’s A Ballet Through Mud
• Jónsi’s First Light
• Seefeel’s Everything Squared
• Zedd’s Telos
• Asher Gamedze’s Constitution
• Tank And The Bangas’ The Heart, The Mind, The Soul
• Sean Henry’s HEAD
• Tycho’s INFINITE HEALTH
• Destroy Lonely’s LOVE LASTS FOREVER
• Jana Mila’s Chameleon
• Mondo Cozmo’s It’s PRINCIPLE!
• Wunderhorse’s Midas
• Los Bitchos’ Talkie Talkie
• Carlile’s Human Human
• Ohr’s Afterglow
• Valley’s Water The Flowers, Pray For A Garden
• Executioner’s Mask’s ...Almost There
• thrown’s EXCESSIVE GUILT
• The Cactus Blossoms’ Every Time I Think About You
• Steve Wynn’s Make It Right
• Ghostkeeper’s Cîpayak
• —__–____’s Night Of Fire
• David Kushner’s The Dichotomy
• Rockin Dopsie Jr. & The Zydeco Twisters’ More Fun With Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. & The Zydeco Twisters
• Suburban Eyes’ Suburban Eyes
• Bent Knee’s Twenty Pills Without Water
• Wintersun’s Time II
• Tab Benoit’s I Hear Thunder
• Shemekia Copeland’s Blame It On Eve
• Dive Time’s Dive Time
• Lia Kohl’s Normal Sounds
• Ellen Reid’s Big Majestic
• The compilation Synthesizing The Silk Roads: Uzbek Disco, Tajik Folktronica, Uyghur Rock & Crimean Tatar Jazz From 1980s Soviet Central Asia
• Fastbacks’ For WHAT Reason!
• Yemen Blues’ Only Love Remains
• Ghostkeeper’s Cîpayak Joy
• Rasheed Chappell’s Nonstop
• Julie Hill’s glow serene
• LE SSERAFIM’s CRAZY
• Tigran Hamasyan’s The Bird Of A Thousand Voices
• Easy Sleeper’s A Sacred Way Of Living
• Rosetta Stone’s Under The Weather
• JAEHYUN’s J –The 1st Album
• Oasis’ Definitely Maybe (Deluxe 30th Anniversary Edition)
• Bullets And Octane’s Demos And B-Sides Album
• Lamb Of God’s Ashes Of The Wake (20th Anniversary Edition)
• Aerial M’s The Peel Sessions
• Niall Horan’s The Show: Live From Madison Square Garden
• Elder’s Live At BBC Maida Vale Studios EP
• Gyrofield’s These Heavens EP
• Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal EP
• U2’s ZOO TV – Live In Dublin 1993 EP
• Chelsea Wolfe’s Undone EP
• dj gummy bear’s Aeon EP
• Wings Of Desire’s Shut Up & Listen EP
• English Teacher’s Live From BBC Maida Vale EP
• Yannis & The Yaw’s Lagos Paris London EP
• Love And Rockets’ So Alive (Remix EP)
• Danielia Cotton’s Charley’s Pride: A Tribute To Black Country Music EP
• EVIL’s obedience EP
• Wasia Project’s Isotope EP
• Greasediver’s Onward EP
• Sex Week’s Sex Week EP
• Kerosene Kream’s The Buying Time EP
