Slimer
Cold Warps
Fundog Records.
SCQ Rating: 74%
My turntable had
until recently been off-limits, boxed-up for months while Skeleton Crew
Quarterly moved its headquarters out of Ottawa. That span of time was
oppressive enough without knowing the riff-packed sweet spot laying in wait
behind Slimer’s immaculate album-art. It may not be glow-in-the-dark like Dog Day’s Deformer, a prior Fundog release, but Slimer reveals a no-frills
foursome basking in authentic garage hooks and DIY slap-dashery.
The title track
achieves the feat of getting two different hooks plastered to my brain; the
opening seesaw of guitars exploring high and low registers and then the
punishing brilliance of Cold Warps’ distorted middle ground. B-side “Dream
Creepin’” keeps the momentum going like a two-way chorus, the first stomping
through lyrical warnings and the latter a surf-tinged crest of expansion. Both
songs depart on salacious grounds, making me wish they’d committed each
composition to another minute or two. But admittedly that might negate the
blitz that Cold Warps clearly thrives on, of executing upbeat slacker-rock
quickly and cleverly.
Slimer’s whole storm
passes in less than five minutes, a brevity by which some listeners may scoff as
too impractical for a physical listening experience. Yet this seven-inch feels
more like a collectors item than anything else; Cold Warps’ foreshadowing of some
awesome maturation on the power-pop horizon.
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