We’ve missed the pulsating motoriks and billowing guitars from the Brighton quartet who at long last sit poised ready to unleash their second effort of nihilistic noise to the world. The Hanging Valley does not seem to have been an easy process for the group to stitch together. Testament to this fact is the claustrophobic, rigid sound it entails – manipulated and squeezed into the album. It’s an album that yells of angst and frustrated tension. It’s a wrestling affair, a tussle and jostle, it has the patience of a toddler in a highchair and it’s alarmingly pleasant to hear the satiric glumness of Cold Pumas once more.

Following their previous release – 2012’s Persistent Malaise – the group have added an additional member and three quarters of them have clambered up the A23 to London. The addition of Lindsay Corstorphine allows for the group to find a sharper message within their whirlwind sound that they struggled to find on their debut.

‘A Change of Course’ is a rampant affair, already given to their fans as the lead single off the record, it squashes the vocals beneath dirges of reverberated guitar that ring around on the surface. Reminiscent of the likes of Toy and Hookworms, it is unchanging in its tempo as the guitar effects build up around it. It possesses the intimidation of a vortex, it’s a muddy drawl but a song that allows for complete immersion for the listener.

The album itself never gives up though, it never bows down. From the album opener, ‘Slippery Slopes’, with its soaring guitar that cuts across those motorik rhythms, it is a bucking broncho that never ceases to pause or allow for you to catchup. The album itself documents the bleakness of the day-to-day, the malaise of mindsets in 2016 and that endless strife we are put through on a daily basis. This is frustrated punk for a frustrated millennial generation, the consistent tempo that never ceases across the opening tracks is a personification of the dull affair that is life.

‘Severed Estates’ kicks into the anger some more, it veers away from the lucid swirls and finds closer similarities with the likes of Girl Band. There’s a taught tension that Cold Pumas hit on here, moving towards stabbing guitar-work certainly emphasises their message. The muffled vocals that linger below the monotonous chime of the guitar on ‘A Human Pattern’ emphasises their anguished message of boredom that is the real crux of their ethos. Everything about it appears satiric, though it is not that the monotonous guitar is boring whatsoever – in fact it is a far from that – it is the type that would keep your lumbering head nodding at a live performance and the heel of your boot stomping on the ground.

Guitars on ‘The Slump’ are reminiscent of the agitated style adopted by the likes of Robert Quine or Tom Verlaine. The bass hammers below, matching the drums toe for toe throughout. They side-step between the guitar occasionally as ‘The Slump’ finds Cold Pumas at perhaps their most perturbed on the album. Similarly, you get a slight insight into the discomforting mental state of Patrick Fisher, screaming nothing but sickness of the human condition: “Contentment’s very grim / A sophisticated dim.” As the song closes, it whittles through explosions of guitar-work, it becomes carefree, a true hedonistic retaliation to the one thing that petrifies us all: the norm.

‘The Shaping of the Dream’ throws us back to the loose guitar work, this time looking closer to the likes of The Walkmen for inspiration. The song carries the same drive that was tested in the early stretches of the album, it is persistent in what it tries to give you as an audience. Distant voices yell through verses, injecting the song with vigour. It begins to emerge that rather than slowdown affairs towards the back end of the album, Cold Pumas have worked themselves into a fit. They have wound up throughout the beginnings and now they are poised to recoil and lash out.

Nowhere is this lashing felt better than on arguably the finest track on the album, ‘Fugue States’. A chanting unification is the method of lyrical delivery – the tying together of voices gives the group a strengthened message. In a day of the mundane, Cold Pumas certainly voice the concern of the majority. It veers through dissonance throughout the verse, unsettling you slightly before cutting in with enormous waves of guitar and fuzz throughout the chorus.

The break from the storm is finally reached on the album closer, ‘Murmur of the Heart’. Cold Pumas are a band that can build evocative romance into songs before the cathartic mayhem that inevitably ensues. Their bio reads that songs such as ‘Murmur of the Heart’ do nothing for the craft beer revolution – if this phrase confuses you slightly, you’re sure not to be the only one. Essentially, it is an insight into the self-deprecating satire that plagues The Hanging Valley. ‘Murmur of the Heart’ may do nothing for the yuppie of today and the growing adoration for caged pubs and American craft ale (that is probably brewed near Birmingham) but is sure to be a release for those that need a break from the mundanity of the day-to-day struggle.

Where other bands comment on life today, Cold Pumas soundtrack life today. The depression of commutes, the struggle of tedious relationships and the anxiety of the modern middle aged man or woman. It speaks volumes for the average person and for that, you should be happy that The Hanging Valley will finally have its release.
Tom Churchill

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