Last Friday, Feb. 7, British post-punk band Squid released their third studio album, “Cowards”. Squid are a part of the “windmill” scene in Britain which includes bands like black midi and Black Country, New Road. Having listened to their last album, “O Monolith,” released back in 2022, I thought it was decent. However, “Cowards” clocks in at over 45 minutes and nine whole tracks, so I was pleasantly surprised by what they brought to the table this time around.
The opener, “Crispy Skin,” starts with a bit of pep in its step. The guitar tone they achieve sounds like it’s out of the medieval ages. I love it. The lead singer, Ollie Judge — who also is their drummer — howls his lines like a dog. Around the three-minute mark, the beat drops out and the song becomes a whole lot more atmospheric.
The drums and guitar sound a lot more muted than before. The last few seconds take a dark, dark turn, as the drums start to distort to hell and back. This opener is a great example of what the rest of the songs will be like. “Cowards” is Squid’s foray into atmospheric sound pieces.
The second song, and second single after the opener, is “Building 650.” It has the same structure as the previous song, but this time Judge is espousing the wonders of his friend, Frank, “Frank’s my friend / We tie them up.” The guitars are a highlight on this track as well; they remind me of 2000s indie/garage rock. The strings, courtesy of the Ruisi Quartet, also add a nice orchestral touch to this song.
In my notes for this album, I describe “Blood on the Boulders” as “Come Together” by Squid instead of the Beatles. The biggest similarity between both songs for me is these descending piano lines, played by Arthur Leadbetter, accentuated by an odd line or two from Judge: “All the houses in this country are built like shit / Dry-wall, well, I could put my first through if I wanted to,” like Lennon and Ringo back in the day. Another great part of this song is around the four-minute mark where the band try their best to achieve a wall of sound. The highlight of this part is these screeching guitar slides that jut into the mix every now and then, keeping the listener on their toes.
The next song is “Fieldworks I.” It falls on the shorter end of the songs on this album, but that’s mostly because it’s the first part of two, which is six minutes total. This first part has a lot of upbeat instrumentation. It brings back that same medieval ages guitar tone from “Crispy Skin.”
The second part, “Fieldworks II,” carries a much darker tone. The tempo is unchanged for most of the song. Judge sings with a hint of melancholy in his voice while guitarist Anton Pearson plucks at his guitar without any immediacy. But after a bridge that brings back strings and a horror film vibe, Judge and Pearson go through the same thing but with a whole new vigor. Judge sings with a real pain in his voice after that bridge, like he has gone through a sort of catharsis.
The next track is the third single, “Cro-Magnon Man,” who was one of the first humans in Europe — fun fact. This is probably the most electronic sounding song off this album, and it also includes an additional male voice and an additional female voice. They provide some lovely backing vocals for Judge. The electronic- sounding first half of this song is a nice change of pace that I wish they kept throughout but the band switches to a more indie rock sound in the second half which was even cooler. The pounding drums and jittery guitar compliment some floaty vocals from Judge.
“Cowards” serves as the third from last song here. This song has the best performance from the Ruisi Quartet on this album. They create such a sense of foreboding dread throughout the song. The singing compounds this effect as well,
Following the title track, we enter “Showtime!” I’d say this is definitely one of the more interesting songs off this album. There are a lot of elements at play here, like the electronic sounds in the middle of the song. The lyrics can be something to delve into as Judge summons the character of Andy Warhol and explores exploitation, ego and abuse through that lens.
At over nine minutes, “Well Met (Fingers Through the Fence)” serves as the closer to a pretty creepy album. I find it interesting that Squid decide to keep this sense of dread and horror throughout the whole song, as they don’t introduce any new elements into the mix to change it up. The medieval age guitar tone does make a third appearance though, after having appeared at the start, middle and now end of “Cowards.” An interesting part of this song is the lyrics, which describes a narrator’s apathy with the climate crisis, with lines like “The cliff and sea worry me” and “The ground is filling up with stones, no more grass between my toes.”
On first listen, I was confused by Squid’s direction and the overall vibe of this album. But one day, I saw a review that compared “Cowards” and the band Squid to an ornate mansion coated with a slimy mucus, and everything fell into place for me. That review made me appreciate the horror and psychedelic aspects of this album that Squid veered into and why the music is given ample space to breathe in long, expansive tracks and soundscapes. It made me appreciate the wonderful usage of strings here and Judge’s voice, which I previously couldn’t handle. Now, I can see those aspects in a positive light.
If I had a bigger brain for critical thinking, I could make even more sense of this album’s musical and visual choices, and rate it higher or lower in the future, but right now I think “Cowards” is simply lovely.
Rating: 3.5/5