Cough Cool

Cough Cool

29

Bathetic

***The Philly-stewed COUGH COOL return with their sophomore long-player for Bathetic with 29, and with it further perfect their bedroom burnout bliss. Cough Cool has always stroked an edgy toss of the hair through their washes of gritty pop. This is an act not afraid to embrace a charismatic flow to their music, while keeping things shifty and weird. They've made their pies with flavors of Ween, Suicide, and ‘90s alternative and they taste really fucking good. 29 is a natural maturation of their sound, with all the peaks getting a little loftier. They haven't lost their hazy state, their eyes still tingling and morning-shocked, but there's an urgency that persists throughout tracks like "Misfits 4x4" and "Disclosure." This album drifts a bit, offering nods to Slowdive and Bark Psychosis with "Hail Mary" and taking the sketched out approach with "It's Night" and "Velvet." "Intro To Regret" sounds like a missing ‘90s compilation track that would've settled nicely between Guided By Voices and Sebadoh. Cough Cool is good like that, mixing something familiar, classic feeling, nostalgic—but not specific. We're greeted by as much lo-fi ‘90s brilliance as we are with alternative rock radio influence and a massive smooch in the direction of My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and Spiritualized. They never settle in the past with their sound or their influences, and so they manage to enhance their own style with the sound of something very modern that belongs in 2013. Cough Cool brewed a sound that was entirely their own...

Cough Cool

Clausen

Not Not Fun

"Clausen is the latest release by NJ/PA bedroom pop experimentalist Cough Cool (or Dan Svizeny if you're his mom), supplied by the uber-genius-weirdos at Not Not Fun. Cough Cool drops seven tracks of eclectic lo-fi, slo-mo guitar driven loner haze with his breathy Springsteen-y gravel whisper deep down there in the fog. The vocals are seriously ridiculously low in the mix but that aspect somehow enhances the listen by demanding a more nuanced attention to detail. Cough Cool fuses together warm daydreamy guitar work with looped drum-machine beats and blurry effects floating throughout; invoking schizophrenic results of early Sebadoh stumbling home from the bar only to catch My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive going at it on the couch; patch-worked arrangements of lush yet uneasy vibes. "Clausen" ramps up the darker side of shoegaze malaise and reverbs and effect-pedals the shit out of it, taking the listener on an off-kilter emotional journey of catchy experimentalism, perfect for those long and lonely strolls of Walkmen blues afternoons. Highly Recommended." --Permanent Records