Cocks Arquette
Cocks Arquette
Reviewed on 9 July 2012
Rated 6.5 out of 10
Key Track: Key Track: This Changes Nothing
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The debut album from Melbourne five-piece Cocks Arquette is an experimental opus of grinding punk guitars, industrial metal, and fuzzy noise rock that draws the listener into a room of one’s own.
Unique and wild, the music invokes a sense of duality throughout: dark and light, masculine and feminine, order and disorder. It’s about angst and anxiety and the hidden thoughts and fears that nobody talks about.
“I feel lost” shouts lead vocalist Simon Karis in the short and messy opening track “Considerably Fucked”, setting the scene for the chaos that permeates the album. The other three tracks are each over ten minutes long with no fixed structure and this makes for an exciting listen.
In one moment the music oscillates from lulling repetition reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine, to the nightmarish dreamscapes of 1970s industrial metal pioneers, Throbbing Gristle. Lyrics are sparse and low in the mix creating a sense of urgency. They work best when breathy and soft, such as in the best track “This Changes Nothing”.
The album does sound aimless and unfinished in parts, like a piece of writing without punctuation. There is sometimes too much going on and the music slips into its own quicksand. However, this is kind of the point – according to the liner notes the music is “a zillion unfinished thoughts, all converging at the same time.”
Recorded live with no overdubs, Cocks Arquette’s first outing is a Lynchian dystopia, where you are propelled from a haunted house, to the Mad Hatter’s tea party, to a Sex Pistols concert, and finally end up resting on a bed of feathers patting a fluffy white kitten. It will be interesting to hear what the lads create next.
- Kristy Sullivan
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