Hi, everyone. Addthony 3tano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Squid album, Cowards.

Here we have the newest and third full-length LP from rising, buzzing, UK art rock and post-punk outfit, Squid, a band that has been really developing their sound for the better part of a decade now, though I think in the minds of many, they are still a relatively new band due mostly to their post-pandemic blow up, which really ushered in a series of exciting new bands from the UK scene that are quite left field. Black Country, New Road comes to mind, also the now defunct Black Midi, etc.

While off the bat, Squid didn't necessarily stand out to me as one of the boldest or most adventurous bands to come from this wave, they did put out a great sophomore album, O Monolith, in 2023, which saw them putting together a lot of raw rock instrumentation with refined arrangements, wild performances, tense linear song structures, too. Really the band's most layered and explosive material to date. I went into this new LP here excited to potentially hear more, as we are seemingly dealing with a lot of the same influences this time around, too.

But for whatever reason on Cowards, it feels like we are getting a much more muted version of them. I mean, for sure, teasers "Building 650" as well as "Blood on the Boulders" did forecast more groovy, entrancing, heady talk rock, but a little more low-key and sounding much more like legendary bands such as Slint as a result. But if that's the energy the band is attempting to evoke on this record, I think we're hitting some shortcomings, as I think the production and instrumentation on this record are maybe just a bit too dry to evoke something that also hits as very eerie and immersive. Nor do I think the lyrics on these tracks are gripping enough to carry so many understated rock passages, even if some of them are interestingly meta on some level.

The flow of this record, I think, comes across as choppy, too, which is surprising because we do have tracks on this thing like "Fieldworks" 1 and 2, which presumably are connected and supposed to reinforce each other. But the former of these two just feels like a bridge to nowhere interlude. Meanwhile, the latter has an ending that fizzles out just a bit too hard, considering how much focus went into building the song up as high as the band did.

Honestly, I would say the whole midpoint of this record, sadly, is a bit of a dead zone in terms of excitement or thrills. I think the eccentricity and the color and the vibrant performances on the LP drop off pretty significantly after a very strong opener, "Crispy Skin", which is loaded with some tense grooves and these very persistent keyboard chords that sound like something out of an old school Krautrock jam.

I wouldn't say this record picks up again until we hit the song "Cro-Magnon Man" on the back end, where it does actually feel like the band is breaking a bit of new ground with some extra instrumental layers and some somewhat zany falsetto vocal harmonies, too. I also like all those zippy little plucked tones throughout the track that sound like a computer trying to calculate the exact trajectory of human evolution.

The title track on this record also sees things slowing down a bit, too. But if the band was going to head in this direction, I much prefer that they pull it off like this to where they are giving us a lot of harmonious instrumentation that you can really get lost in. I also like the lyrics on this cut, which describe a very grim, desolate dystopia.

I would say all of these aspects apply doubly for the final two tracks on the record, too, "Well Met" as well as "Showtime". Tracks that feature all of these grandiose horn layers and little twittering arpeggios that feel wondrous and otherworldly, which, again, if the band was going to craft an experience that wasn't quite as high energy, I would have preferred they've gone about it like this and give us that more panoramic instrumental palate.

But yeah, I don't know. Considering the successes, artistically, Squid has seen up until this point, for me, Cowards just feels like a bit of a blander transitional moment where they're on the way to moving on to something else. As in the group's catalog so far, I don't really feel like this album hits upon anything all that bold or defining or really new, either in the grander scheme of things or just within what the band has shown they can pull off so far with their two previous albums, which is why I'm feeling a decent to strong 6 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Squid, Forever.