Album Review: Angel Du$t - 'Cold 2 The Touch'
Angel Du$t are back and more illusively creative than ever! ‘Cold 2 the touch’, out February 13th, is a masterful blend of musical fluidity.
Ever since their inception in 2013, Angel Du$t has always been a force of creative freedom for its members. This evident lack of constraint has allowed the band to flourish into a well-rounded powerhouse. Album after album, they have shown up and blown the roof off, and ‘Cold 2 The Touch' might be the most evidently dynamic and expressive of the bunch. In the 3 years since their previous album, the band have clearly gone away and let loose from their external commitments for this album. At the core, Angel Du$t’s music is reflective of their practice; every member brings something new and something fresh, whilst everyone plays elsewhere and sharpens their skills within their respective genres, Angel Du$t is always there for them to run hog wild and show the expanse of their brilliance.
The blend is where this album sets itself apart from most projects I’ve ever heard. You name it, it’s got it. Blistering blast beats, check. Bluesy lead lines perfectly synchronised with hardcore chugs and power chords, check. catchiest vocal pieces ever, check it, then check it again. This album has everything. It really resonates with me when I can listen to a project and feel every ounce of passion that has been poured into every note, and it’s a true joy to be able to hear this lust for creativity throughout the entirety of the album. While every track stands on its own, some equip specific techniques that show up time and time again. Take, for example, the hectic and maniacal drumming of the opening track ‘’Pain is A Must’ this coarse and violent rhythm can be found in parts throughout the album in tracks like ‘Zero’ and ’The Knife’. While it has common themes, the opening track also contains some choices that present themselves as both abnormal yet succinct. The hair metal style lead riffs that are laid throughout the song are absolutely fantastic and really provide a full-scale display for what we are about to bear witness to.
As the album glides onwards, we are treated to an eclectic group of singles that demonstrate the sheer genius of this band. This album had a large number of singles released for an 11-track run, but I believe this will only work to their benefit, as each song contains something that its predecessor did not. The 2 singles from the opening half of the album include the title track ‘Cold 2 The Touch’ and ‘I'm The Outside’. The former acts as a more traditional hardcore track that traces the band members’ roots back to where they all came from and proves again that they can create blinding hardcore tracks that pull influence from all forms of the genre. This song continues to astound with some fantastic slide riffs and villainous chord progressions that drive the engine of the song forward at Mach 10. The former of the 2 has an immediate upbeat and lively pop punk-inspired feel to it, straying slightly from the hardcore roots into a fresher and more nuanced format for the song. This also contains the single catchiest chorus of a song released so far this year. This chorus is then immediately slain by the oncoming avalanche of a halftime breakdown that still keeps its light vocal tone but hammers it home with brutal chord changes and thunderous kick drum patters.
The remainder of the A side is littered with brilliance. Around track 4 is where the expectations are confidently spiralled out the window, and the real fun begins. This journey of discovery starts with the track ‘Jesus Head’, opening on a clean and silky-smooth chord progression. It’s tough to see where it will take you, but as the band joins in piece by piece, it creates this beautiful and harmonious blues-influenced masterpiece. I find it truly fascinating how they keep switching up the pace and really surprise their audience with the layout of the album, as it ebbs and flows from more traditional 80’s hardcore-inspired tracks like ‘ZERO’, taking a thrash metal lead line and coupling it with some mid-tempo power chords to create a truly badass track. This then heads straight into “Downfall”, which yet again rewrites the album’s code and switches to a pretty keys-heavy background and stadium rock feeling foreground. This yet again shows the mastery and artistry that these guys possess.
The back half of the album starts with a lull, stripping everything back into the single ‘DU$T’ this starts slow and harmonious with a beautiful display from each member before completely exploding and falling into a discordant and avant garden break down that really kicks you up the ass and gets you 2 stepping, this vice like grip on the audience is maintained throughout the album all the way till close. The final 2 tracks, ‘The Knife’ and ‘The Beat’, were both released as singles, and both tracks fully encapsulate the hardcore essence. ‘The Knife’ takes that same formula and keeps it bouncing throughout every note while still making alterations, after all this is an Angel Du$t album so no track will be linear or predictable, this is then immediately followed by ‘The Beat’ and this songs in your face bass heavy style wants to hurt you and hunt you through the corridors of its 1 minute and 43 seconds of unrelenting intensity, this album could not have had a better closer as this track strips the experimentation down and shows just how powerful this band is when it comes to their bread and butter.
This album is easily Angel Du$t’s best and most creative and it truly brings the hobby-esque style of the band into the forefront as its refreshing nature gets you back in touch with not only the artists passion for their respective instruments and roles but your own, this album left me feeling truly inspired to go and pick up a guitar and create and I truly believe that this obvious pit of creative respite is one of the projects that will keep alternative music alive for many years to come.
Words by Josh Pook
