Brighton trio Cousin really impressed us with their intricate wiry debut EP Alternate Tunings For Regular People, filled as it was with “tight, intricate guitarwork, incessant grooves, a rhythm that doesn't know how to quit so beats the shit out of you instead, a melodicism that is infused with equal parts sunshine, narcotics and playful disdain.” (that’s me quoting our review. I don’t think I have ever done it in this way before. Weird.)
Back in March the band released their follow-up EP Music To Polish Your Rifle To (out through Fcking The Night and Barely Regal Records), maintaining their faux-instructional pretences while playing with the wordsmithery, the titles of the 6 songs evoking backwoods sweat-stained inertia and anxieties. Don’t worry, the music has stayed the same – Cousin are clearly infatuated with the Polvo school of atmospheric intricacies. In my opinion the new songs are a little muted – a sense of gravity pervading the compositions, a subtlety that belies the playful nature of the song titles. So the languid nature of ‘Oversized Haulage’ or the freneticism of ‘Dry Steering On A Wet Road’ feels undercut by a rich seam of control, of tempered temperatures, of zen abrasion. I was expecting something more frenetic, more sinuous, yet Music To Polish Your Rifle To instead enthrals through intricate mechanisms designed to entrance, to control. Pick it up here.
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