Cold Gawd
I'll Drown On This Earth (black)
Cold Gawd return to Dais for their second and most supreme suite yet of crushing downer bliss: 'I'll Drown On This Earth.' From the defiant scream that kicks off opening cut 'Gorgeous,' the album rips in what singer and principal songwriter Matthew Wainwright describes as "go for it" mode: holding back nothing, wasting no time. Although the bulk of the songs were written in 2022, recording sessions weren't booked until March of 2024, which allowed ample time to refine and distill the music's hooks, heaviness, and haze. The result is a perfect storm of distortion and dream pop, cracked love songs cloaked in swooning walls of noise. As on 2022's 'God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here,' Cold Gawd's contemporary vision of shoegaze manifests intriguingly in outlier moments, like the hushed, whirlpool reverie of 'Tappan,' or the vaporous, slow-grind downtempo of 'Nudism' (complete with regal piano outro). Theirs is a muse as vivid as it is varied, from Loveless, to Drake, post-hardcore and Beach House. Drown evocatively captures the expanding canon of Cold Gawd, dense with riffs and raptures, escape and revelation, channeled from stacked amps and hidden powers: "Give praise / to whatever / I got time for / hallelujah."