As per its title, the malaise seems pretty persistent and
pervasive on Cold Pumas’ debut LP. Buzzy lo-fi indie garage rock purposefully
drowned in clanging wells of sound. Jangly-jumping-pumping-bumping drums and
guitars that stomp out mousy vocals with boots of noise that drone and drip and
loop over hooks that just can’t catch onto anything concrete as the band
repeats them over-over-over-again-again-again-again…
And yet, for all the monotony and flagrant lack of ambition, Persistent Malaise is persistently
listenable. Boring perhaps, if you’re in an attentive mood. But listenable.
Listenable in the same way the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray” can be
endured, even cherished. There are beats. They build sometimes. The amplifiers
are appropriately fuzzy. There are some chord changes and sort of-almost-kind
of riffs. There is definitely attitude and style and aesthetic mindfulness and
punk detachment. “Fog Cutter” even very nearly cuts through the band’s own fog
to get to something genuinely moving. But in the end, the record is without
climax, catharsis, direction. The malaise’s sludge is tangible and on the other
side of the swamp is more swamp.
Cold Pumas are Joy Division without the morbid edge, Sonic
Youth devoid of variety, Bauhaus absent
of dread, Titus Andronicus free from curling fumes of anger, the Pains of Being
Pure Heart minus adorability, focus, and, uh, purity of heart. This is
art-house music for art-house music’s sake. It belongs in a postmodern gallery
alongside a painting of a large dot and a sculpture made of tampons. It has its
place, its audience, and its own brand of critical unassailability but it isn’t
the work of grand masters in possession of worshipful talent.
That being said, I am fully convinced that Cold Pumas could produce an album with real
emotional pull. The raw materials are there. There are moments when the
flatness reaches beyond its post-punk, shoe-gazing, eyes-on-the-floor banality
when you can see actual ideas at work, actual heartbreak manifesting itself and
doing its gory job. But then, the ideas lose themselves and the band remembers
that they’re supposed to be literally embodying the dictionary definition of “malaise”
and jangle-drone-boom-boom-on-on-over-over-lather-lather-forget-rinse-just-lather-lather-repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat…
Grade: C
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