LP Review: "Without Condolence" by Cowardice

Without Condolence

As a self-described fan of "the other" sports leagues...when St. Louis had our last minor league hockey club, we were there.

The St. Charles Chill of the CHL (earlier WPHL now ECHL..confused? Try following a Silly Season in minor league hockey.)

That night a newer friend was meeting older friends of mine. Both groups liked good beer and hockey, so it was an easy match.

My senior friend tells my junior friend, Nik always told us he was an asshole. He said that on the day we met, I'm an asshole. If you don't like me, too bad.

My buddy went on to explain, Nik wasn't an asshole. He just needed an upgrade on his wife and now he's a joy to be around.

To get a bit serious, yes, I need some life changes and having a hard outer shell was my favorite coping mechanism.

However, here we are and my wife and I have recently celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. She's not my new wife, my current wife, or anything else that those terms imply. She is simply, she who is my wife.

Cowardice

Enter the debut record from New Jersey's Cowardice.

Labeled a doomed out sludge band, but what are they really?

The album starts off loud, fuzzed out, and frankly incoherent.

This band is angry. They are shouting at the moons. They are sounding their barbaric yawps more brutally than could be counted upon.

Especially for doomed out sludge metal....

There's an element of some black metal here and a traces of death metal, but that's not what ties all of this up into a neat package.

When the songs are closing in on the breaking point, when this album would have reached the point of abject redundancy, the hard outer shell shatters and the soft, mellow center arrives.

For the rest of the album, Cowardice is trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together but can never quite do it. The hard and the soft coexist beautifully.

Release: 12/29/16
Genre: Doom/Sludge Metal
Label: DIY
Formats: CD/Cassette/Digital
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