Coolrunnings - Dracula Is Only The Beginning (album stream)

Coolrunnings are at their first long trial and together with their "colleagues" Soft Powers are part of the macro lo-fi/electro area but in detail they covered the current noise pop scene launched by Pitchfork.

Originally released in April of 2011, this album has been completely re-mixed and re-mastered and re-released.


Release date: Feb 13, 2012

The album shares a feature with those bands working between the end of the last decade and the beginning of the new one, I mean the reworking of dissimilar influences within the same project while keeping an overall coherence. Rules for the application of this principle are different, most common wants the joints occurred in the same track (think of of Montreal, Ariel Pink and the same Soft Powers) but Coolrunning opting for the second mode, they consider the overall project settle a single reference on each track, working upstream of the process. The result is a miscellaneous album, with songs that are very different from each other but normalized by the lo-fi film. In 10 songs the band often changes registry, until I can be dreamy just add freak and exotic detour to the structure, from Jesse starts the kaleidoscope of influences. This track is an americanized glam rock, a Dandy Warhols version of it, the title track instead looks to the British glam rock of Roxy Music. Follow the wave of Megalomania, U2 90's version in Burnout and again the "ambient" new wave of Fort Kid. The band (they're seven!) has clear ideas, no uncertainty, no drop style. Style and ambition, two qualities that make this project one of the most exciting debut of the season.

Review

This album reads like a eclectic best-of; the band members trade instruments and styles from song to song without losing a step. Though they list Brian Eno, the Ramones, and african percussion amongst their influences, COOLRUNNINGS are very much a band of this era. As never before, young musicians these days are able to expose themselves to a vast and exotic universe of music. You get the impression that these guys are happily floating in that universe, drawing on the tones and textures which most help illustrate their vision.


The standouts on this album include Thunderbirds, whose chugging muted guitars and stomping toms immediately draw you in. I can Be Dreamy pairs Ramones-esque vocals with a unique drum pattern, distorted synths and jangly guitars which combine to create a cloudly haze of a song which shouldn't work, but does. Fort Kid is the beautiful and evocative album closer, a stirring whirlwind of melodies which fold into each other and eventually surrender to sweeping strings. If as the title suggests, this is only the beginning, then the future is bright.
Review by Matt Tamblyn for thefashionpress.blogspot.com

Links
http://coolrunnings.bandcamp.com/
http://www.draculahorse.com/
http://www.last.fm/music/Coolrunnings