Lost Coves – S/T – CDEP 2010
After a protracted period of birthday celebrations, holidays, illness, more birthday inebriation, sleep depravation and a Monster Magnet show I finally felt I had achieved the correct mindset to embark on a psychedelic journey with trippy Brooklyn band Lost Coves.
Consisting of members Dylan and Bill this is an experimental noise outfit that have more ideas crammed into this 26 minute release than some bands manage in a life time of output, Christ I can see the rhythm section of AC/DC starting to break into sweat listening to the first track ‘Orig’ as it swoops and dives in focused chaos.
The band themselves have a grand vision for their music and no illusions about where it stems from, “Lost Coves stems from boredom and ambition colliding at monumental trajectories. And so we make music. We don`t really write songs as much as build movements based on rhythm, feedback and melody. Think Melvins and Herbie Hancock on tour with Beast In The Field arguing over the influential importance of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin on heavy metal, singing along to the Deftones and Bjork with Portishead on deck, playing air drums to Helmet and Pantera, burning one to Kyuss and Clutch, and driving drunk blasting ZZ Top Tres Hombres.”
Listing influences is always dangerous – particularly when you sound like none of them! This is under half an hour of art rock that is constantly shifting in style, heavosity (yeah I know it’s not a real word…) and pace recalling the heady days of AmRep Records finer calling cards and words that spring to mind to describe this are spasmodic, lurching, glorious, jarring, fuzz rock.
It has hazy serene moments of calm and clarity before twitching and gathering discordant sounds to usher in the darkness….measured sections of Indie/Shoegaze and warped sounds clash over pulsing bass and hypnotic feedback.
At times, when it peaks, they hit sublime highs like on ‘Lost Cove’ itself, the results are phenomenal. It is almost like the beginning of a Tarantino score – retro and yet brought up to date, cool and arresting before the wheels come off and you are thrown without a safety harness into the avant garde world they occupy and it is every man for themselves.
This isn’t a release for everyone, it isn’t a release for every day – if you prefer more traditional rock and roll this may be a stretch too far – but it is an ambitious, bold and progressive statement of intent that highlights a band that know how to write an arresting tune, but make their audience work for it; know that it takes great interplay to write cohesively, but want to push those boundaries as far as their talent allows it.
Label: Saw Her Ghost Records
Website: www.myspace.com/lostcoves
Scribed by: Mark Hunt-Bryden
