am not sure what a cold shower is in the music world, but if it is the plural it has to be really gloomy?
With a layered sound consisting of an hypnotic guitar, surfing and shredding, a dark KORG synthesizer giving up on some brightness at times, a powerhouse drum beat, and some girl-boy vocals that were nevertheless buried most of the time, the quartet Cold Showers played a fierce set on Monday night at the Echo, bringing the crowd toward more tenebrous explorations than the bands that had previously played.
Their droning sound was a sort of false shoegazing since the rhythm was certainly there, but it was transforming the place into a druggy dance floor, with their dark groove built by these guitar loops and UK 80s post punk synth riffs, prolonging the track for a long time. A curious assemblage, that was perfectly working nevertheless, while dissolving many sonic influences at the same time, and slowly building a thick daze that nobody could escape. It was as if the generally sunny surfing guitar had suddenly turned cold. They ended up with a new song that sounded a little more upbeat, probably less Joy-Division than the other ones.
It was a 2 boys-2 girls band and I kept thinking I had already seen one of the girls, the one who was playing the Dick-Dale-y-surfing guitar: It was indeed Jessica Clavin, who is also the half of the punk girl band Bleached she is forming with her sister Jennifer,… funny as Jennifer was part of another chilly band, Cold Cave, for a while.
They have released a 2-track EP ‘Highlands' on Mexican Summer last May, and you can take a listen to it here:
http://www.mexicansummer.com/shop/cold-showers-highlands/