COUGHS - Fright Makes Right

Originally released in a limited pressing, this debut by Chicago's Coughs reached a wider audience (so to speak…) thanks in part to the kind words of Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers), who once called them "the last good band from Chicago." And indeed, the sextet's sound, led by the raw, feverish voice of Anya Davidson, is the kind that immediately stands out against a scene that's too often stifling and hopelessly tied to cliques and micro-scenes. A vibrant blend of folk-punk à-la Violent Femmes (but far angrier) and oblique free-form music with funk cartilage reminiscent of Pop Group, the music on "Fright Makes Right" attacks relentlessly from start to finish, moving with ease along the edge of the abyss and the brink of ultra-noise explosion.

A mush of rotten, harmful, ugly sounds forming deformed frescoes, with a touch that could be called "gestural," anarchic. The input is always that of tearing apart a fabric one can only imagine as somehow related to rock, but which, on closer inspection, sails toward the open sea of reckless liberation, mocking an already aberrant kammerspiel with lashes of white noise ("Animal Hospital"), having fun in chorus with banjo and knick-knacks ("Come Back To Me"), or revisiting the Windy City's "mathematical" free jazz with neurotic, lobotomized ramalama ("Elephant").

The sax bellows in resignation behind the sinister, deranged dance of "Elimidate," as it does in the degraded lied of "Garter Snake." Elsewhere, it hisses at the very limit of its range, with Braxton-like inflections. Dizzying industrial cadences mark the title track and "I'm Just A Bill," moments that sanctify the raw flesh of a sound that's all pulp, right through to the furious destructive raids and barrage fire of "Give Peace A Chance" (ironic, isn't it?) or the subdued yet subterraneanly psychopathic declamations of "Narwahl," set over minimalist ellipses. The extraordinary "Homeland" is one of the absolute peaks of this unhealthy, putrescent art: scraps of melody overrun by dense streams of vitriol. Music that revels shamelessly in wearing itself out. Music that shame, in turn, loves to debase, to shackle, to mock. Sonic sludge. Circles closing in, caging an asylum-grade psychedelia ("Mail Order"). "Penal Colony" is impenetrable, its fabric studded with frequencies and percussion straight out of an infernal ceremony. And Davidson, unrelenting, rants words like screams in the dark, surrendering to self-destructive instinct ("Photo Safari").

Impending catastrophes, in an ever darker atmosphere ("Starchitect"), heralded by telluric syncopations and manic circle-dances, the kind people put on to pretend the world isn't really vanishing beneath their feet ("Stars And Stripes Whatever"). And while it's true that the final seconds return to the strange choral refrain of "Come Back To Me," it's also true that by now it's just a tired, pointless refrain: stuck on itself, stunned by so much murderous fury.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

30/04/2026