Releasing an album a week or so after playing shows is not what you’d call ideal. Obviously, the band wants to play new material (at least it would if the material is any good), but the crowd is unfamiliar with it. It can be a quandary.
In most cases, that is, but not for The Cold Stares.
No, instead, they turned up in what amounted to a boiling hot cellar in a trendy pub in the shadow of Birmingham’s main station, less than seven days before “The Southern” was due—and played loads of it.
“Horse To Water” is one they aired. All the trademark crunch and swagger of the band. All the light and shade and that somehow timeless quality.
“Coming Home” gets down and dirty in the swamps of Ohio, and you reflect that Chris Tapp is perfect for this stuff.
Letting their hair down might not immediately be what you’d associate with the Cold Stares, yet “Looking For A Fight,” which takes on the polarised nature of things, does seem to relish the scalp more than usual.
Even on a record such as this, which amounts to one long highlights reel, then “Blow Winds Blow” is an obvious gem. Relatively new bassist Bryce Klueh is to the fore, and if it is less raw than when they were a duo, then it suits them now.
“Confession”—another played the other night—brings a dollop of Lenny Kravitz-type vibes and a whole load of sass.
The acoustics turn up for “Level Floor Blues,” and they make it classic as any blues has been. Until that is, they unsettle.
Pushing the envelope has always been in TCS’s DNA, and the drums of Brian Mullins do that here. They don’t follow any pattern that you’d expect, and there’s a line on there—a key line in the whole thing. “The road is my home,” it goes, and you feel their love of the craft.
There seems to be an innate sadness in much of this, and it comes bubbling to the surface on “No Love In The City Anymore” as Tapp looks on with incredulity at the greed he sees in 2024.
For all that “The Southern” explores its Southern roots, calling it a “Southern Rock” record would be to miss the point. “Giving It Up” sounds like Joe Bonamassa jamming on Cream, and “Woman” is primal and thick in its groove. Blues, though, binds them together, even though it’s a fairly simple love song.
A record that frequently surprises has one more left before its end. The plaintive “Mortality Blues” is both acoustic and raw, as it takes on mental health issues head-on.
The Cold Stares are one of those bands. Those of us who love them can’t understand why they aren’t huge, yet they seem to go just under the radar and tantalizingly out of reach.
Maybe they’re happy like that, but for a decade now, they’ve been making blues-based rock n roll just a little different from anyone else.
Even by those standards, “The Southern” feels like a real statement.
Rating: 9/10
REVIEW: THE COLD STARES – THE SOUTHERN (2024)
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