Hi, everyone. Eternal and infernal hails. My name is Annethony Is Undeadtano, the internet's busiest music nerd. And today, we are going to be reviewing the fourth studio album from New York City-based outfit, Couch Slut.

Couch Slut are some of the current forerunners in heavy experimental music. They tend to draw a lot of sound from black metal, which really is indicative in the riffs that they have on a lot of the songs, especially on the recent album. But their biggest influences are primarily noise rock bands, specifically Jesus Lizard and Oxbow.

They have three current other albums in their studio discography, the first one being My Life as a Woman from 2014, and then the most recent, outside of You Could Do It Tonight, being 2020's Take a Chance on Rock and Roll. All three of which tend to be a little bit more rough around the edges and have a bit more of an abrasive sound to them, whereas the more recent album, You Could Do It Tonight, is a little bit cleaner around the edges, but it does not take away from any of the brutality.

Their sound is also incredibly indicative of the current wave of noise rock revival that we're experiencing. If you enjoy bands like Chat Pile or Intercourse or have happened to catch the recent album from the band Meth's Shame, you will really personally enjoy the sound of this particular album. It is heavy in all the right places while also being very emotional and carries a lot of a message of feminism and also discussing very heavy topics like sexual assault and drug use and general violence against women or just people in general. They do everything with blunt force and generally carry on without caring how you feel about it, but also being careful about how they discuss it since such heavy topics require just a little bit of caution.

Megan Ostrosits, their vocalist, just absolutely wails away on the entire thing. Her voice is incredibly punchy and incredibly addictive at the same time. While you feel like she's grabbing you and shaking you around a little bit throughout the album and really letting you feel how she feels as she's singing it, there's also moments of calmness where her voice takes on a bit more of a melancholic and somber tone as opposed to just pure anger. Having that range really helps the album, I think, shine through.

The first three songs on the album, "Couch Slut Lewis," "Ode to Jimbo," and "CENSORED" all really gracefully melt into each other. So as soon as you enter the album, you are pretty much just guaranteed to want to dive in further because each song creates this beautiful, everlasting rift and ongoing narrative that doesn't feel like it's trying too hard. It just all naturally naturally flows into each other, like a really nice creek into a river. The guitar and the bass are incredibly punchy and crunchy as all health throughout. But you can also tell there's a lot of melody and a lot of understanding of song structure that makes them really, really beautiful at times.

There are moments on songs like "Laughing and Crying," where it doesn't feel as much of a noise rock song as it does a black metal song because there are moments of serenity throughout the entire album as well. There's also experimentation with instruments like bells, trumpets, and flutes. You'll notice some of that on songs like "Energy Crystals for Healing," and on "Laughing and Crying," and also on "Ode to Jimbo."A lot of the sound of the extra instrumentation, especially with the trumpets, reminds me personally a lot of the band Cows. And I think that it really creates a much more interesting sonic palate throughout, instead of just sticking to the core instrumentation. You really a breadth of sonic interludes and changes that build upon each other as opposed to counteracting each other.

The lyrics throughout are incredibly story-driven, and each of the songs pretty much carries forth a narrative and a story. I really cannot cite most of the lyrics, unfortunately, because Google would probably take this review down because of the subject matter being so aggressive and handling matters like assault and drugs and self-harm.

One of the things that is incredibly exciting about the album is the fact that Couch Slut, being a noise rock band, they are taking a lot of the subject matter that is prevalent throughout a great deal of earlier noise rock bands, especially on topics like violence and misogyny, and making it into something that's completely different, changing narratives and viewpoints. You really feel like there's a good sense of love and care for the genre and where they come from, while also bringing forward new ideas and really progressing it past the elements of where it could have been or where it currently is.

However, despite the fact that there are a lot of really interesting and incredible storytelling narratives throughout, and though the instrumentation is also really strong throughout the duration of the album, there are a few issues that I have with it, specifically on songs like "The Donkey" and "The Weaversville Home For Boys." Both of them really slow the album down in a lot of ways.

"The Donkey" comes in towards the middle part of the album. And I think that the narrative behind it is incredibly interesting, and the story being about a girl and her friend getting really fucked up, making a short story, stop motion animation film with some dolls getting bloody, this guy at the house cutting himself open, it's like a whole fiasco. It's basically just this story that starts and ends with nothing. It's not as interesting as the others, and I really feel like it really brings the album down a lot.

The other song in question that I had an issue as stated, was "The Weaversville Home For Boys." Though it is sonically a great song, the fact that the instrumentation is as strong as it is, is wonderful. The issue at hand is that the song is what the album ends on, and it feels like such a low and depressing hope because it doesn't really say anything or do anything. It's about these girls at their school being told about this home for these really horrible boys. It feels like a bad horror film. And even though I think the delivery of it's fine, and I think that the overall ideas in it are fine, it doesn't really go anywhere. It doesn't really do anything. I feel like the story and the overall concept of that song could have been flushed out a little bit more. Also, the interlude part towards the middle, which is a presidential welcome, I feel like that also is out of place. Those are just small nitpicks on my end.

Overall, there are a lot of strong and incredible elements to the album. And even though those two particular songs and the interlude drag it down in a few ways, I would say it is a pretty fantastic album, and it is a really strong fourth album from Couch Slut. Watching their progression as a band over the last decade has been really interesting because they keep building upon their sound and they don't ever really go back. They change things up with every single album, and this one is, by all means, their strongest effort.

I think with that, I'm going to give this album, You Could Do It Tonight by Couch Slut, a strong 7 to light 8.

Annie is Undead, Anthony Fantano, Couch Slut, Forever.