Shortly earlier than founding his jangle quartet the Tubs, Owen Williams poured himself into a really totally different ardour challenge: a prickly novel impressed by the suicide of his mom, folks singer and author Charlotte Greig. “It was 2016 and the Trauma Industrial Advanced was revving into gear,” Williams defined in a Substack submit; “I wished to be exploited too.” Alas, he recounts, the market was not as ripe for his type of unsentimental grief as he’d anticipated. Each agent handed on the ebook, and he didn’t take the rejection properly: “There’s a particular sort of humiliation in failing to hawk your massive tragedy.”
The sunshine on the finish of his spiral of sleepless, Xanax-addicted months got here partly from the sudden success of the Tubs, who have been attracting curiosity past the area of interest corners that also get excited a few new jangle-pop album. After the nice and cozy reception to the band’s dourly tuneful 2023 debut Lifeless Meat, the concept nagged at Williams: Maybe there is perhaps a again door to repurpose a little bit little bit of the novel that no one wished. He discovered that the songs for the Tubs’ follow-up Cotton Crown got here rapidly.
Cotton Crown doesn’t shy from the inherent discomfort of the subject material. That’s the artist’s mom on the album cowl, breastfeeding a new child Williams in a graveyard in a black and white picture initially used for one in every of her 7″s. The closing tune, “Unusual,” contains an anecdote a few stranger grabbing Williams’ arm at his mom’s wake and suggesting he might write a tune about it, an origin story he appendixes with an apology (“Effectively, whoever the hell you might be/I’m sorry, I suppose that is it”). “The Factor Is” opens the file with the sort of self-loathing endemic of any person who’s going via an excessive amount of shit to be any good in a relationship.
The distinction between a tragic tune and a tragic novel, in fact, is that given their in-and-out nature, unhappy songs aren’t almost as suffocating—particularly not the best way the Tubs’ play them. Despite Williams’ glum lyrics and chilly, stricken voice, the music at all times chugs alongside merrily. “Freak Mode” barrels ahead with the pep of Bob Mould at his most frolicksome, whereas the jubilant “Narcissist” rings out with Johnny Marr chime. Even Williams’ dispatches from the deepest throes of despair are performed as absolute romps. “In some way sitting in my empty room/Is the one factor I wanna do,” Williams sings on “Phantasm” over rollicking pub rock.
As at all times, guitarist George Nicholls and backing vocalist Lan McArdle function the sugar and creamer to Williams’ black espresso. (McArdle, William’s previous bandmate in Joanna Ugly and current one in Ex-Vöid, isn’t a full member of the Tubs, but their harmonies are so integral to the pleasure that it’s troublesome to think about their albums with out them.) If Lifeless Meat performed like a misplaced IRS Data launch from 1987, Cotton Crown performs like one from 1988—a contact clearer, a contact extra refined, maybe, however basically of a bit. The album’s inconceivable feat is that, even with its inherent tragedy, Cotton Crown is someway a fair breezier, extra agreeable hear. It’s not usually that sorrow goes down so simply.
All merchandise featured on Pitchfork are independently chosen by our editors. Nonetheless, whenever you purchase one thing via our retail hyperlinks, we might earn an affiliate fee.
