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Cougars
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Pillow Talk
Go Kart Records
Release: 4/25/2006
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Rated:
Review by:
Jason Warner
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"I'm walking through a shitstorm baby; your shit is driving
me crazy!" This is a line taken directly from the Cougars'
track entitled, appropriately enough, "Shitstorm." This is
only one of 10 tracks on their new album, Pillow
Talk, recently released on New York's Go Kart
Records. If one track can be that… oh, I don't even know
what, crazy, I guess, then imagine what they can do on the
other nine tracks! All joking aside, "Shitstorm" is actually a
quite beautiful and dramatic composition with a nice middle
section that slows and quiets down only to build back up to
the finish. This track, like most of the others on Pillow
Talk are full of gravelly vocals, a feature that only
serves to intensify the fact that walking through a shitstorm
must drive one really really crazy! Oops, I forgot I was
supposed to stop joking around. I can't help it.
Pillow Talk was recorded in analog by Steve
Albini. So what? The music is either good or it sucks and
recording it digitally vs. analog does not make it any more
or less sucky or good, it's just a different way of looking at
(or hearing) things. That said, Pillow Talk does
have a nice analog warmth to it, and actually more than a
warmth on this record, to me, it's almost more of a fuzzy
presence. And, while this same effect can be achieved in a
modern digital studio without trouble, the band apparently
admired Mr. Albini enough to desire his stamp on their
music. Hopefully that was the reason, and not to try to gain
notoriety, which would be lame, and not unlike walking
through a shitstorm.
Cougars bring an interesting sound to the table, one that is
hard to pigeonhole. There are elements of many kinds of
music here, but I guess that's not shocking since there are
eight fellows in the group. Two guitars, bass, drums, vocals,
synthesizer, and a two-piece horn section featuring a
trumpet and a saxophone. I personally could do without the
horns, not that they are bad, but just that I'm not in to the
way they sound with this music. However, I can appreciate
the band included them. It is an unconventional idea and I
guess it kind of works, I just don't really like it that much.
The synthesizer adds some nice textures when it can be
heard, which in my opinion is not enough. The guitars and
bass sound great and work well together. The drums sound
especially good and warm, and the vocals are gritty and
intense.
The song titles are humorous, but the music is serious.
There are a lot of good songs here, "Someone Out There
Has My Boner Picture," the aforementioned "Shitstorm" and
the playful "There's No 'High' In Team." Really pretty much
every song is engaging and some even border on too
intense. My favorite track is "Ultimate Horseness," the one
track that deviates from the Cougars' formula by going soft,
quiet, with spoken lyrics, and features a cool guitar
lick.
Overall I would say Cougars are an interesting rock and roll
band that is perfectly secure on the fact not everyone is
going to grasp their art. In my opinion that's a much better
place to be than MTV. |
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