Crosslakes - Sunshowers - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Sherban Lupu - Ernst Complete Music 3 [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/29/2013

A few years have passed since their last album for DAIS, but Los Angeles-based Cold Showers steadily returns to the tag's roster with their third album, Motionless, wielding a more developed pop sound that is familiar to followers, yet more sophisticated and evolved than their previous works. Having traversed the realm of synth-laced post punk expertly for close to a decade, their return with the new album Motionless is a process-based album that reaches into the band's collective quiver, melding their familiar anthem infused post-punk and rich, grand pop influences. Motionless is Cold Showers looking inward and taking control of their creative process, while retaining all of their unique songwriting signatures. Recorded in their own studio in Los Angeles with band member Chris King at the production helm, each selection on Motionless sounds like a line drawing that quickly becomes a technicolor collage of crashing shoegazed reverberation. As compared to their previous endeavor, Matter of Choice, the similar additions of arpeggiated electronics and more recently, string arrangements, adds a new, more sophisticated depth to Cold Showers' already dense allegories. Tracks such as InchShineInch and InchFaithInch stand on their own as heavy-hearted melodies that have an almost InchclassicInch impression after only one listen. The band's cover of Sandy Rogers' 80's ballad InchBlack SidewalkInch (only available on the LP & CD) offers proof-of- concept, never fully comfortable with their formula and challenging themselves as to what defines an amazing song. InchMeasured ManInch and InchDismissInch have Cold Showers orbiting in the palpitations of early Factory Records and present each spin with tactical layering, rather than flooding the board. With an overarching narrative of quiet control, Motionless allows Cold Showers to highlight their writing strengths with liquid ideat

2016 , the proper debut full-length from the New York ensemble featuring former Dark Meat members Jeff Tobias, Jim McHugh and Jason Robira. “Hard to pin down, harder to hold onto; bent circuit board snake charmers unfurl across hexagonal grids. A seemingly familiar sound, but then you realize you have your ear pressed against a reflection. Sunwatchers are a distorted prism to so many past greats reminiscent of Ethiopiques, John Handy Band, Terry Riley, Art Ensemble meets Laddio Bolocko. Forever-swirling saxophone blended belly-to-belly with elastic guitar and tinfoil-thin phin (a Thai instrument not unlike an electrified tenor guitar or sitar); a whirlpool of repetitious interpretations; militaristic marches ascend into meditations. These songs map out great pyramids and deep, buried labyrinths; they are massive, they are leviathans. Amazing cover painting of Handsome Jimmy Valiant by artist Scott Lenhardt—a strange but somehow sensible match made in heaven. Dream machinery, just plain far out. Look for traces of this one in your brain jelly afterwards.” – John Dwyer.