Southern California shoegaze squad COLD GAWD are preparing to release their second and most supreme suite yet of crushing downer bliss, I’ll Drown On This Earth. From the defiant scream that kicks off opening cut “Gorgeous”— which premieres today— the album rips in what singer and principal songwriter Matthew Wainwright describes as “go for it” mode. Although the bulk of the songs were written in 2022, recording sessions weren’t booked until March of 2024, which allowed ample time to refine and distill the music’s hooks, heaviness, and haze. The result is a perfect storm of distortion and dreampop, cracked love songs cloaked in swooning walls of noise.
Of the single, Wainwright says: "'Gorgeous' picks up where 'Passing…' [album closer from COLD GAWD's 2022 breakout LP 'God Get Me the Fuck Out of Here'] leaves off. I thought if I addressed all the issues and changed my scenery then my heart would be free and I could start again. However, all of what was holding me down followed with me and what I thought would 'fix' me proved to be nothing if not more harmful. By the end of the song I’ve drowned to the bottom of Mooney Falls and I’m looking for that hand to hold to bring me back up.”
Recorded at Paradise Recorders in Anaheim, CA with Colin Knight (of post-punk unit Object of Affection), Wainwright tracked the strings while Cameron Fonacier handled drums. The process was efficient and effective, sharpened by years of performance. The songs sound as dynamic as they do dialed-in, soaked into the bones of the players. The lyrics came last, written by Wainwright a week before recording. Moods of surreality, infatuation and melancholy flicker and fade within a fog of memory and reverb.
As on 2022’s God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here, COLD GAWD’s classic but contemporary vision of shoegaze manifests intriguingly in outlier moments. Theirs is a muse as vivid as it is varied, from “Loveless” to Drake to post-hardcore to Beach House. I’ll Drown On This Earth evocatively captures the expanding canon of COLD GAWD, dense with riffs and raptures, escape and revelation, channeled from stacked amps and hidden powers.