Photo by Liam Wallis

Though they’re now finding themselves whirring through the currents of the modern shoegaze abyss, Cold Gawd — the Rancho Cucamonga band led by primary songwriter Matthew Wainwright — has long established themselves as an outlier in the scene before a proper revival of it even was proclaimed with their faceted 2021 breakthrough debut, God Get Me the Fuck Out of Here. “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name”, the lead single from their forthcoming sophomore follow-up, I’ll Drown On This Earth, furthers their steps ahead of the rest. Sure, it presses certain stylistic fingerprints into its washed out surface with Wainwright’s vocals singing vacantly of a far off desiring over dense crushes of riffs being thrown back and forth into walls of feedback, but there’s a feeling of something more pronounced through his spell song that evocates the clarity of emo and lucid dream-pop. “I’ll take you / To that place in mind / Will you / Come inside?” Instead of getting lost in himself alone, he and Cold Gawd are inviting you into the deep sinking feeling with them.

Cold Gawd’s I’ll Drown On This Earth will be released August 30th on Dais Records.