Cosse – It Turns Pale
Release Date: 10th February 2023
Label: NIMAS
Bandcamp
Genre: Post-Noise, Alt-Rock, Experimental, Post-Rock.
FFO: Sonic Youth, Slint, Polvo, Dirty Projectors.
Review By: John Newlands
It Turns Pale is the debut release for post-noise quartet Cosse. The band are from Paris and have shared the stage with bands such as BRUIT ≤ and GGGOLDDD and site their influences as Girl Band (now Gilla Band I believe), Slint and Sonic Youth.
It Turns Pale certainly starts strong with lead single Pale Horse, an emotionally charged track which offers great dynamics and some catchy lyrical hooks. This is followed up nicely by Tangerine, a more up-tempo number that borrows heavily from the Sonic Youth & Slint playbook, with well-placed female harmonies and similar guitar playing techniques.
Third track, Evening, once again immediately made me think of Polvo or Sonic Youth with the discordant guitar, use of guitar harmonics and controlled chaos. The track also makes nice use of dynamics, and again the female vocal in the calm middle section is reminiscent of Dirty Projectors or Sonic Youth.
Evening is followed up by the more subdued Easy Things, a beautiful track that plays nicely with restraint and dynamics.
My favourite track on the album, though, is probably Mind Facilities, another upbeat track with a very cool glitchy noise “freak out” middle section and a killer bass & drum hook that gets the head bobbing nicely.
I found it hard to connect with a couple of tracks through the album, including track 5, Braindow, and the closer, Slow Divers. For me, had the album been a little shorter, it could have warranted back to back listens without feeling fatigued.
All in all, it’s brilliant to see that there are bands out there still flying the flag for this genre and attempting to push the genre further, since many of the genre defining bands are now defunct.
As much as I like It Turns Pale, I feel that Cosse are yet to reach their full potential and needs to shake loose some of the influences that they lean on so heavily and find their own true sound. As I understand, the bassist has been recently replaced, and I’m certainly interested to learn how this will influence the band’s sound going forward.
(3.5 / 5)
