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Four friendly faces from Lucerne, celebrating their emo under the name COLD READING. "Emo" – did I really just write that? As if good music does anything other than convey emotions. I’ll just use this silly genre label from the 90s, which was later marketed to eyeliner-wearing teens and a Gothic Hello Kitty style. But today and here, it’s about songs about personal feelings, about harmonies called out in many voices over playful rhythms. In the end, I could have written about indie rock strumming, but I won’t. Oops.
A softly played guitar intro opens the record, accompanied by restrained yet emotional vocals. Then suddenly the whole band comes in, bursting forth with slowly rocked downstrokes and multi-voiced harmonies. They shift down a gear again, the band now plays the intro along and calls out the background vocals. Extended vowels and lyrics (in English, of course) about hope and disappointment, friendship and loss, all quite solid so far. The second song. Again a wave motion, quiet to loud to quiet to loud, and always on top of that this voice in a relatively high pitch, supported by the buddies. For a touch of drama in the chorus.
I’ve listened to the album at least six times and each time I eventually lost track of which song I was on. One of them is enough to know what it’s about. Two are enough to represent the entire stylistic palette of the album. Sure, they play well, and you can tell that COLD READING must function as a unit in the rehearsal room and on stage to create such well-structured songs and transitions. Aha, maybe that’s where the album title comes from. With too many changes, unfortunately, you can also ruin the groove a bit. In any case, before the album really clicks with me, the powder has already been shot. Too bad, because there are good riffs here, good ideas, and a band that enjoys what they do. Still. It sounds too forced to be convincing.
