I’ll Drown On This Earth is a hell of a title to get the point across that you’re about to let a heavy wall of sound wash over you. Cold Gawd, like many devotees from shoegaze’s next generation who have idol worshipped everything from My Bloody Valentine, Whirr, Nothing and everything in between that realm, know how to turn up the volume very loud when it comes to turning reverb and delay pedal effects in your favor. Put your ear closer to the speaker, however — carefully, I should add, because it can obliterate them through sheer decibel level — if you want to hear what separates the Rancho Cucamonga band led by its songwriting mastermind Matt Wainwright from the pack hopping onto the current’s bandwagon for aesthetics’ sake.

When I spoke with Wainwright on the heels of of his 2022 breakthrough debut, God Get Me the Fuck Out of Here, he mentioned how being part of the hardcore scene as well as the studying the world of R&B was his ace card in carving out an identity all his own in nü-gaze’s crowded field. “From shoegaze to rap to R&B to anything else I took in, I broke them down because I needed to know how to form a sound to differentiate myself. I need to know how to build a perfect track list,” he said. I’ll Drown On This Earth is a perfection on that thought, with many of the driving forces of lush distortion coupled with aggressive, post-hardcore diffused guitars and toppling reflections on wayward romance, self-defeating isolation, and existential inquiries from a swooning spiritual plane remaining constant, if not more embossed in detail and ready for their live reveal.

Vocally is where you find Cold Gawd’s signature flex. Wainwright’s lips are drawn even more to an influence of searching for the inner soul through Drake-before-Drake-got-embarrassing, Solange, and Frank Ocean more so than whatever whispercore method of emoting is happening elsewhere in the scene. It’s shoegaze with the sweet caress of alternative R&B in its touch, except in this case, no body is moving because all of the bodies are cold and drowning. Where his peers aim for something heaven ascendant, Wainwright and Cold Gawd are immersing themselves in the physical world’s depths. You can feel yourself slipping away, too.

Highlights: “Gorgeous”, “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name”, “Malibu Beach House”

Cold Gawd’s I’ll Drown On This Earth is available now on Dais Records.

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