{"id":11031,"date":"2015-04-01T13:00:39","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T13:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-cousin-music-to-polish-your-rifle\/"},"modified":"2018-03-17T15:12:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T15:12:19","slug":"album-review-cousin-music-to-polish-your-rifle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-cousin-music-to-polish-your-rifle\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Cousin &#8211;\u00a0Music To Polish Your Rifle To"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/a221e77f569371a77cf90152b8b2e917\/tumblr_inline_nm12r27o271qztcot_500.jpg\" width=\"250px\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><br \/>\nThe more knowledgeable lovers of UK music will hopefully know this but, for you unfortunate others, it is worth pointing out that 2014 was a tremendous year for British post-rock and math-rock. Brontide, Talons, Alpha Male Tea Party, Axes and Cleft all put out very strong records, and ArcTanGent\u2019s sophomore success has all but confirmed it as the UK\u2019s, nay, Europe\u2019s must-attend festival for aficionado of the genre. Secondly, Brighton has gradually been establishing itself as the most vibrant scene for british alternative music for a little while now. What does one get when Brightonites take on post-rock then? One gets <strong>Cousin<\/strong>.<\/figure>\n<p>If you were to place <strong>Cousin<\/strong> on the post-rock spectrum, you\u2019d have to say they have less in common with the dark, brooding textures of <em>\u2019New Topograhics\u2019<\/em>-era Talons, and a lot more with the fun-loving hyper-dynamic songwriting of an Alpha Male Tea Party or Axes, perhaps striking some sort of middle ground between that and Brontide more measured and methodical approach. What I\u2019m trying to get at is that <strong>Cousin<\/strong>\u2019s compositions give off a strong sense of creative untetheredness whereas their execution suggests diligent mastery and control. <!-- more --><\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>On their recently released EP <em>\u2019Music To Polish Your Rifle To\u2019<\/em>, never is that balance struck better than on opening track <em>\u2019Dry Steering On A Wet Road<\/em>. Now they never quite reach the sort of pace Axes or AMTP strive for, that doesn\u2019t seem to be the intention here. Instead, they indulge in rhythmic decrescendos, off-kilter semi-arpeggios, and some rather cool drumming. <em>\u2019Which Schnitzel\u2019<\/em> works with some unusual, yet undoubtedly catchy, licks. <em>\u2019Oversized Haulage\u2019<\/em> occasionally flirts with sludge-y slowness before wrenching themselves out of the mud to sprint their way into techy riffs, yet they\u2019re also able to ace the gentler sections.<\/p>\n<p>All in all. <strong>Cousin<\/strong> appear to have all the tools at their disposal to become one of those \u201cjack-of-all-trades\u201d post-rock outfits, comfortable with whatever they intend to throw at the listener. Their new EP won\u2019t set the world alight, but I struggle to find any obvious flaws to their game. For post-rock completionists above all else.<\/p>\n<p>3\/5<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2019Music To Polish Your Rifle To&rsquo;<\/em> by <strong>Cousin<\/strong> is out now on <b>Fucking The Night Records<\/b> and <b>Barely Regal Records<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Cousin<\/b> links: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Cousin\/179330192146827\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>|<a href=\"\/\/soundcloud.com\/cousinband%E2%80%9D\">Soundcloud<\/a>|<a href=\"http:\/\/cousintheband.bandcamp.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bandcamp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Words by James Berclaz-Lewis (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/bearclawlewis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@bearclawlewis<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The more knowledgeable lovers of UK music will hopefully know this but, for you unfortunate others, it is worth pointing out that 2014 was a tremendous year for British post-rock and math-rock. Brontide, Talons, Alpha Male Tea Party, Axes and Cleft all put out very strong records, and ArcTanGent\u2019s sophomore success has all but confirmed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8181],"tags":[5879,6203,6201,6202,6200],"class_list":["post-11031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-post","tag-album-reviews","tag-arely-regal-records","tag-cousin","tag-fucking-the-night-records","tag-music-to-polish-your-rifle-to-ep"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Album Review: Cousin -\u00a0Music To Polish Your Rifle To - Already Heard Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The more knowledgeable lovers of UK music will hopefully know this but, for you unfortunate others, it is worth pointing out that 2014 was a tremendous\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Album Review: Cousin -\u00a0Music To Polish Your Rifle To - 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