“There’s not a minute to lose,” croons Jonathan Nash, Cowtown’s vocalist and guitar-slinger, on ‘Paranormal Romance’ opener Clock In. The band take their own advice on board, with their fourth LP clocking in and out within 23 minutes.
Crawling from Leeds’ DIY punk scene, Cowtown have exuded a pop-infused, garage punk racket for 12 years now, streamlining their sound as they’ve advanced. Here, Castleman is a massive radio rocker, almost as if the Arctic Monkeys decided to actually give it some welly, while Tweak benefits from some glorious “Woah-hey-oah-oah!” calls. Captain Planet boasts a gloriously ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll guitar line.
And that’s the thing. While you can point at fans of Arctic Monkeys and the Kaiser Chiefs and scream “Why don’t you like Cowtown?”, they’re probably not going to get on board.
Maybe that’s just being presumptuous, but Nash’s vocal nuances on Clock In have more in common with weirder rockabilly stuff like Dick Venom & The Terrortones than Alex Turner’s lot.
That being said, the more radio-friendly moments on ‘Paranormal Romance’ could and should be packaged for mass consumption. You can almost picture the frenetic, Vaccines-esque indie onslaught of Buggin’ Out being churned out before an apathetic Reading & Leeds or Glastonbury crowd.
The techno-bastard-pop-garage-rock-punk-hybrid of Emojicore is an album highlight, encapsulating everything that’s great about Cowtown: Nash’s irresistible vocal hooks and dirty guitar blasts, David Shields’ messy-yet-precise drumming and the blippety-bloppy keyboard merriment of Hilary Knott. It’s a frantic, appropriate finish. It’s just big, loud and fuzzy.
It’s not the most innovative shtick in the world, but the band do what they do very well. They don’t play it straight enough to compete with the big boys, yet don’t pander to the press by upping the freaky elements of their sound. If you like the sound of Cowtown, give ‘em a go. They deserve it.
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