Cold Showers - 'Motionless' Album Review

Tracklist:

1. Untitled

2. Tomorrow Will Come

3. Shine

4. Measured Man

5. Motionless

6. Sinking World

7. Faith

8. Dismiss

9. Black Sidewalk

10. Every Day On My Head

If you’ve not yet made it to LA, fear not. Los Angeles Post-Punkers Cold Showers transport you there in the opener to this their third album, ‘Motionless’. It is as claustrophobic as it is wide open. I imagined being holed up in a shabby motel room listening to the hiss of radio chatter mixed with the heady sounds of the city drifting in from the distant freeway.

Next is ‘Tomorrow Will Come’, a brooding but ultimately optimistic encounter and like many of the songs on this album there is a hypnotic element running right through with streaming synths behind the familiar hooky guitar.

It has been said that there is more than a little Joy Division to their sound, but now with a maturity that is more akin to New Order, punctuated with stabs of Editors. Yes, there is something quite English about Cold Showers that connects with a beat that has its very heart in the crossover of English and American Punk and New Wave.

‘Dismiss’ comes almost out of nowhere with an instant up in tempo and a drive that cruises along at pace and is far from motionless.

Single ‘Faith’ is a perfect choice for a first release from the album. It perfectly sums up scope on the record, incorporating playful discordant elements with more familiar structures of sound.

The final song ‘Every Day On My Head’, like much of the album, forces you back down. Just when you think there is an escape, gravity pulls you back down to earth.

I got hooked on ‘Motionless’ from the first listen and it just gets better and better and better.