I'll Drown on This Earth

Following a spirited debut with God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here, Cold Gawd returned in 2024 with I’ll Drown On This Earth, confirming the group’s standing in that decade’s crew of new shoegaze bands out to make a mark. It absolutely blasts out of the gate with “Gorgeous,” with a buried shout and a massive chug of a riff combining exultance and heaviness, with lead creative figure Matthew Wainwright’s sighing vocals adding a glistening beauty that even carries through the near black-metal screams later. It sets the excellent tone for the album as a whole, eight songs ranging from similarly overdriven roar and haze to calmer but no less involved and lovely feedback zones, as with the subtly propulsive flow of “Tappan.” Wainwright’s increasingly distinct mix of combative energy towards shoegaze stereotypes and making some of the best sounds out there in the field absolutely shines at its best, guitars in overwhelming cascade. The dreamiest song title – and the music lives up to it – is easily “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name,” but the best may actually be “Duchamp Is My Lawyer.”