After earning their chops in early 2010 with debut EP Zombies and two-track release Ice Cream later in the year, Cool Cult have released their first full length album, Try Crunch. When Under The Radar caught up with Cool Cult some months ago, the group seemed focused on diverging from their previous work, namely a shift away from the happy-go-lucky sound of Zombies. But as to what we’d be getting, the only hint was The Jesus & Mary Chain as influence.
The album is not far off what you might expect, given these reference points. Eighties-nineties shoegaze and noise pop influences are clear throughout and the Wavves-style Californian pop has definitely been given a back seat role. As album opener ‘Skulls’ begins with a great lurching of reverb and overdriven guitar, the change in the band’s tone is obvious. Lliam Powell’s vocals are slow and dark, barely surfacing above the ominous drone of the music. ‘Sleeper’, the album’s longest track at almost six minutes epitomizes the sound of the album and is somewhat reflective of other bands in the current scene. Thick, heavy and hypnotic, the track is as comfortably sedative as those of the genre’s pioneering counterparts.
Try Crunch, the album’s namesake is – despite being an outlier in the album’s sound – one of the best songs on the album. It’s a catchy as hell tune in the vein of The Chills and The Clean. And, although being the poppiest track on the album and the one most similar to Cool Cult’s previous work, there is still a somewhat dark undertow. The vocals are understated and distant, keeping us detached from cheerful melody of Maté’s guitar and there’s nostalgic feel in this track that resonates through the music of the band’s predecessors.
Given the speed these guys have evolved over the last year, it’s hard to guess what we’ll be hearing from them next, but I’m willing to bet it’ll be no less impressive. In the meantime, I’ve no problem with giving this album its fair share of rotation.
