Cold
Cold
(Flip/A&M)
In the wake of grunge and the waning prominence of a "Seattle" sound, Cold emerge with a sound that capitalizes on everything that mattered from the days where indie-beasts like Soundgarden and Mudhoney ruled the earth-an onslaught of guitars that sways from unrelenting to submissive and damn-near docile. The name of the game is dynamics, and Cold have it down to an art form on their self-titled debut. Discovered by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, the Jacksonville, FL quartet (who relocated from Atlanta, where they played as Grundig) splash their crashing wave of guitars with whips and swirls that accentuate a pop-friendliness behind songs of inner turmoil and trauma. On the foreboding "Ugly," frontman Scooter Ward sings with such despair that you feel the pain when he bemoans, "All the world loves things of beauty and intrigue, these two things I've never had one," the music weighed down by orchestrations reminiscent of the Cure, only to, a track later, unravel "Everyone Dies" in a cacophony of buzzing timbres and damn-near uplifting stringwork. As melancholy as the results are, brooding raspy vocals over music that blurs the lines between Tool-ish tones, Sabbath riffs, and the dark pop of Depeche Mode, there's no resisting their addictive muse, a testament that the fine-tuned art of songwriting can overcome even the harshest array of influences.
Paul Gargano