cough cool

aquarius records in SF has copies of “lately” and they seem to dig it.

We were pretty crazy for the Cough Cool cd-r on Debacle we reviewed a while back, heavy on all 3 of the aQ D’s: Droney, Druggy and Dreamy, a sort of warped slo-mo bedroom pop that blurred shoegaze shimmer into lo-fi jangle dirge drift, within which lurked all sorts of warm liquid poppy goodness. If anything this latest lp just finds the band doing what they do even better. All of the above mentioned elements are still present, and heck it’s one of those records where we could probably have just used the same review over again, but it’s definitely worth mentioning that while this might on the surface sound just like that cd-r part two, it’s way more, the sounds are more lush and dense, without really getting that much more high fidelity, and the songs too, manage to be even catchier, but again, without losing any of their sonic nonchalance. The rhythms are rudimentary, dirgey and almost stumbly, to the point that they almost sound like real drums (heck, maybe they are), and the definitely goes a long way to giving CC a lush organic feel, and on songs like “Got A Show”, it’s like they’re channeling nineties indie pop, big fuzzy guitars, swirls of reverb and effects, the vocals are the main thing that keep it mired in a glorious tarpit murk, all slowed down and mumbly, deep and woozy, and when the vocals do slip into something more properly croonsome, they’re invariably swept up and thick dustdevils of echoey blur and prismatic shimmer. We’re definitely reminded of faves from our past like the Swirlies, and of course the Jesus And Mary Chain, and plenty of other purveyors of shoegaze jangle, but there’s just something about these guys that push all our buttons, and not just the droney, druggy, dreamy ones, CC obviously have a knock for the perfect pop hook, and have classic jangle pop sensibilities, it’s just that somehow the sounds get all twisted and tangled, warped and mangled on the way, which is exactly how we like ‘em! 

-aqrex