Coxcombs

Coxcombs

Written by: BV on 19/12/2013 18:41:26

Coxcombs is yet another one of those bands that would have flown directly under my radar, had it not been for a friend of mine making a stubborn recommendation that I sincerely needed to check out their self-titled debut album. With LP in hand, my researching on the band had begun and I soon realized that this collection of songs had been recorded during a rather extended period of time – giving me an initially disconcerting feeling that this might be one of those albums that have a selection of cool tracks, yet lacks any sort of cohesion.

As album opener “Bad Road” makes its appearance it is quite obvious from the get go, that Coxcombs are psychedelic/avant-garde garage-rockers – thus taking the repetition of psych and the fuzziness of garage-rock to entirely ‘new’ areas, constantly approaching the borders between listenable and downright frustrating. – To some, that is. In reality though, “Bad Road” is an insanely catchy track that, albeit it carries a distinctly avant-garde feeling, comes off as incredibly listenable and occasionally downright pleasant with its hypnotic riff and the droning, mantra-like vocals. Pleasantly so, this seems to be a general recipe for the entire A-side of the album, the first five tracks for those of you that haven’t got a clue as to what an A-side is, with the notable exception of “Higher” which has a slightly fuzzier, somewhat more avant-garde drone-esque sound to it, that actually reminds me of a mixture of Velvet Underground and straight-up Texas-psych.

Moving on to “Below Us”, the sound does take a turn for the slightly darker, more avant-garde where the inexperienced garage-psych listeners will inevitably feel like it isn’t as remotely interesting as the first couple of tracks. At some points though, I feel like that myself as the track, in spite of its insanely cool vocal work and down-right tasty guitar sound, comes off as somewhat uninspired compared to the majority of other tracks on the album, making it seem like it doesn’t really fit in entirely – leading me back to my initial concerns regarding the spread-out recording period.

Finally though, nearing the end of the record the band kicks it up a notch by including a rather cheeky cover-version of Roky Erickson’s “I Think of Demons”. Normally, I’d adhere from praising the inclusion of cover-versions of absolute classics on a new band’s debut LP. However, in the case of Coxcombs, the cover is adequately satisfying as it adheres somewhat to the original form – though with an added touch of admiration and re-thinking.

As such, the combination of Coxcombs’ rather monotonous, yet kind of cool, drone sounds coupled with their apparent fondness for the classic Texas-psych of Roky Erickson has spawned a relatively successful debut album and I’d probably be smart to keep an eye out for them for the next while. These guys might go on to become quite exciting.

7

Download: I Think of Demons, Bad Road, Higher
For the fans of: Cosmonauts, The Hedgehogs, The Velvet Underground, 3AM
Listen: Facebook

Release date 24.10.2013
Future City Devil’s Island


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