Thursday 12 July 2012

Wake By Cold Summer

Cold Summer

Cold Summer are a new band on the Wakefield scene, relatively speaking, with some extremely impressive credentials. Their press release details support slots in the region for the recent End of a Year/Self Defence Family and Aficionado tour, a one off show with Nai Harvest and an upcoming slot supporting Lemuria. Couple that with influences such as Thursday and La Dispute and understandably I’m pretty excited about giving this a listen. 

Of the five tracks, opener Waiting and third and fourth tracks A is for Arson and Car Crash (In Progress) are the core “proper” tracks. These stick to a pretty standard quiet loud format shifting back and forth between twiddly picking guitar lines with a bit of a groove feel in places, building to a thicker modern hardcore sound. Think early Lostprophets or Full Collapse era Thursday for the intricate bits, building to heavy guitar and strained/shouted vocals ala Defeater or Touche Amore. Add into the mix plenty of heavy rock riffs throughout (some of which made me think Queens of the Stoneage?) to tie it all together. The two additional tracks are Mistakes, a kind of Sensefield meets Kids in Glass Houses poppy emo piano driven number to close out the record, and title track Wake an ambient brooding filler track after the opener. Wake is for me the highlight of the EP. It’s got that haunting, desperate, Ian Curtis influenced UK hardcore sound perfected by the likes of More Than Life, Hospitals and Dead Swans.

Overall the EP is a well executed and well polished package and the guys should take pride in what they’ve created. But the loud quite format at times lacks cohesion and as a whole it just doesn’t always seem to fit together. There’s a lot of potential here and I’m really keen to see the live show but it does feel like as a new band they’re still finding their feet and their sound.

Who cares what I think anyway this is the digital age check them out for yourself!

The EP is self released through their Bigcartelon 6th August with some nice T’s on offer or check out the Lemuria show at Leeds Cockpit on 4th August.

Martin Bott

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