Southern California shoegaze squad Cold Gawd have released their second and most supreme suite yet of crushing downer bliss, ‘I’ll Drown On This Earth’ via Dais Records. From the defiant scream that kicks off album opener Gorgeous, the album rips in what singer and principal songwriter Matthew Wainwright describes as “go for it” mode. Although the bulk of the songs were written in 2022, recording sessions weren’t booked until March of 2024, which allowed ample time to refine and distill the music’s hooks, heaviness, and haze. The result is a perfect storm of distortion and dreampop, cracked love songs cloaked in swooning walls of noise.
Recorded at Paradise Recorders in Anaheim, CA with Colin Knight (of post-punk unit Object of Affection), Wainwright tracked the strings while Cameron Fonacier handled drums. The process was efficient and effective, sharpened by years of performance. Anthemic headbangers like Malibu Beach House sound as dynamic as they do dialed-in, soaked into the bones of the players. The lyrics came last, written by Wainwright a week before recording. Moods of surreality, infatuation and melancholy flicker and fade within a fog of memory and reverb.
Watch the Malibu Beach House music video via YouTube below.
As on the amazing debut ‘God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here,’ COLD GAWD’s classic but contemporary vision of shoegaze manifests intriguingly in outlier moments. Theirs is a muse as vivid as it is varied, from “Loveless” to Drake to post-hardcore to Beach House. ‘I’ll Drown On This Earth’ evocatively captures the expanding canon of COLD GAWD, dense with riffs and raptures, escape and revelation, channeled from stacked amps and hidden powers.
‘I’ll Drown On This Earth’ track list
- Gorgeous
- Portland
- All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name
- Duchamp is My Lawyer
- Malibu Beach House
- Tappan
- Nudism
- Bird in Space
Order ‘I’ll Drown On This Earth’ here and see COLD GAWD on the road this fall.
Live dates
November 2 Seattle, WA @ Vera Project ^
November 3 Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall ^
November 4 Corvallis, OR @ C3 Ballroom ^
November 6 San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill ^
November 7 Los Angeles, CA @ El Cid ^
November 8 Phoenix, AZ @ Nile Underground ^
November 9 Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad ^
November 11 Austin, TX @ Empire Control Room ^
$ Record Release Show w/ Britty Drake and Vatican Voss
% w/ Soft Kill, Beton Arme and Concrete Elite
^ w/ Gouge Away
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