From Louder Than War: Coilguns: Odd Love
Coilguns: Odd Love
2024
Switzerland’s Coilguns release Odd Love – their fourth LP of progressive noise rock – and first since before the pandemic. The stiff competition of their incendiary early work presents a high bar – Sean Millard says forget cuckoo clocks, chocolate and cheese – Coilguns may just be setting themselves up to be the finest Swiss export of the 2020s.
When I use superlatives like “incendiary” and (incoming) “mind-blowingly engaging” (ad infinitum) in regards to Coilgun’s back catalogue, I’m not being lazy, sensationalist or even enthusiastic. It just a statement of fact. Pick any one of their previous three LPs – Commuters, Millenials or Watchwinders – and you will be greeted with mind-blowingly engaging progressive noise rock. It’s a sound that offers something genuinely new and exciting to fans of a genre that can be, let’s be frank, somewhat in awe of The Old Goat – sorry – Guard and/or, these days, come down more on the side of the noise than the rock itself. As much as I love most of it.
It’s a genre that still challenges though; and, occasionally, stand-out bands like Chat Pile, Elephant Gun, Whores, Djunah, Gaythiest, Mr Phylzz, DTP or Bummer – amongst many more – really do release a record that can justifiably hailed as classic, even when ranked more broadly than just against their peers. Coilguns have consistently achieved that. Quietly, without fuss – self-releasing quality record after quality record.
The band was formed in 2013 from ex-members of prolific, complex, articulate and uniquely Teutonic prog-metallers The Ocean. Imagine Isis and Mastodon thrown into a tumble dryer only to be pulled out statically-charged and clinging to one of Rush’s socks and a pair of Pelican’s pants. There’s even some lint from Radiohead and some stray trip-hop pubes caught up in their close-weave of their later LPs.
Suffice to say – The Ocean are musos. Coilguns was formed as a break from that heavy-duty and expansive musicianship, in an attempt to create more direct music. It’s surprising only because there’s nothing simple about Coilguns, beyond it being more straightforward than their previous band (which really is not difficult achieve). To them, this might be less challenging to play, but the joy at the heart of Coilguns work is their willingness to experiment, develop textures and create a deeper experience for the listener than the typical noise rock template usually expects, encourages or delivers.
As I said – pick one – you’ll be overwhelmed with their invention, chops and writing. There’s coherent groove there. You’ll hear Botch-derived discordant noise. You’ll indulge in melody and soaring instrumental passages. There is dropped down mumbled atmosphere – but above all, there is coherence. Despite the disparate elements Coilguns bring to their writing, nothing is thrown in for the sake of it. The songs are all served by the variety in the playing, evolving and twisting through screamed noise rock, distorted atmospheres, hypnotic discordance and helpless whinnies all within a single three or four minute track.
Truly progressive, in the broadest sense. They’re fucking with structure and story-telling with the dynamism in their playing throughout every recording. Maybe that’s why it’s taken a while to get to Odd Love from their last LP, 2019’s Watchwinders. It just takes time to write this stuff. Although they have released live and split stuff in the meantime.
They also have numerous side-projects, including Trounce (post-black metal, and vocalist Louis Jucker’s own eponymous indie folk project).
All of which is to say that there’s a lot of expectation loaded onto Odd Love.
A price any band pays for a successful discography. But Mein Gott – Odd Love starts in a devastatingly direct – and remarkably straightforward way, for Coilguns – with the blistering hardcore of We Missed The Parade. I don’t think they’ve ever committed such ROCK to record before. They should do it more often. It blows the cobwebs away and delivers on their initial brief of creating simpler, faster songs than those they built in The Ocean. It definitely does that.
Placeholders is next, with it rolling drums and At The Drive In-style vocal melodies. There’s even whistling involved which would have made Roger Whittaker proud. The progression comes when all these elements unite and lift elegy-like to the song’s refrain that provides the earworm that you’ll be left with at the end of a somewhat startlingly unpredictable journey.
Generic Skincare is built on an urgent off-beat drum pattern that throws you around as you listen to it – the song’s infectious chorus – again with cleaner vocals than you’re used to coming from Louis Jucker’s pipes, is verging on – not pop – that’s a disservice – but a more melodic anthem than I’ve heard from them before. It breaks down into an über distorted metal groove that screams to the end.
Shit. So far, three for three – hard, fast, progressive textures and inventive melodies. This is a good one…
Black Chyme has the sinister swagger of, bizarrely, Marilyn Manson in places. Sounds like an odd connection to make, but the vocal style for the verse brings me back to Mechanical Animals before returning to more appropriate screams once the instrumentation dies down to give them space. A unique backwards songwriting twist. I’d expect the space to usually make way for the cleaner vocals. Even in, what is so far, the least surprising track of the LP, the band still manages to defy convention and keep your ears engaged.
Bandwagoning was a preview track. Instead of my waxing on, have a listen here:
Caravelis by far the most commercial writing to come from Coilguns ever – not just on Odd Love. The eccentric Patton-esque vocal delivery reminds me of some of his less madcap experiments. But the song itself is really the only time the album falls flat for me – until its bellowed and discordant piano crescendo, which, again, elevates the tune into something special. They’re really good at endings.
Venetian Blinds has the air of Hot Water Music about it vocally – there’s a healthy dose of Chris Wollard downplayed melody in the verses. The song flies by, despite its medium pace. I have to give another nod to its refrain – the theme of this LP is rapidly becoming “Uplifting Crescendo”.
The subdued Featherweight begins almost ambiently, with a tom-pattern and soft-picked reverb-drenched guitars, before bursting into heavy-as-fuck rage at the halfway mark.
The Wind To Wash The Pain was the first preview track for the album. Initially, I was disappointed. I was expecting more energy and they go heavy on the atmosphere on this one. It does the ambience brilliantly, but still, after repeated listens it doesn’t grab me and is the one track on the LP that doesn’t redeem itself. It seems a surprising inclusion on the album as it feels like a lull it doesn’t need.
Even more surprising is it being selected as a preview track for an otherwise energetic LP. I must be missing something but make up your own mind:
The album ends on a stronger note with Bunker Vaults. It is anthemic, progressive hardcore at its best. It even recalls a non-goth AFI in places for me. Especially with the mid-song drum patterns and the way they lift the instrumentation and drop it down again. It’s a great song to end on – perhaps the bookends are the strongest tracks on here.
Unlike other Coilguns albums, Odd Love has a more conventional structure. The songs rarely breach the four minute-ish mark and the 10 tracks, together, create the sense of a familiar album composition, which might attract more people into their wide-eyed cult.
Special credit should go to Luc Hess’s drumming. It drives the creativity of the album – and where Louis Juckers vocal experiments are always appreciated, but sometimes miss the mark – they really are very clean in places – Hess’s drums save the day every time. They’re engaging and clever – but never overwhelm the song itself.
Odd Love is definitely more commercial than previous Coilguns albums, but not debilitatingly so. Being more commercial than their previous albums really doesn’t mean that Coilguns are any more chartbound than they’ve ever been. They’re still awkward, adventurous and subterranean. But there’s a refinement to the writing that will definitely broaden their audience. It’s cleaner, for sure. There are a couple of moments when that goes too far, but generally a balance is achieved really well. It feels like an evolution, not a revolution – which is a good thing, at least for existing fans of the band.
It’s hard to see how Odd Love will garner much negativity in the press – for most discerning listeners, it does everything. And, importantly, it does (almost) everything right. My only criticism really is with the tracks that were chosen to preview the LP; they are the least representative of the album itself. This may have been why they were chosen, of course. Odd Love is naturally hard to represent, but the two previews really are the outliers for me.
Odd Love is a worthy addition to a daringly experimental and musically articulate discography. In itself, quite genuinely, an incredible achievement.
Coilguns deserve to break through to the next level with Odd Love – whatever that means to them. With what they’ve created here, their audience can only grow and the respect they deserve might finally head their way.
Go get.