Album Review: "Year Of The Spider" (2003) - Date Unknown
|
Cold
Year of the Spider
Flip/Giffen Records
Year of the Spider is one of those albums that you can simply put in your CD player and sit back and listen to in its entirety - something that seems to be hard to come by these days. The first single off the album, "Stupid Girl," which features Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, is quickly growing in popularity on TV and radio. This may just suggest that Spider is the album that will officially make Cold "popular" with the masses in Canada - whether that is a good thing or not shall be left to personal opinion.
Spider does not only showcase some awesome guitar and a an overall heavier-rock sound, but the lyrics of the entire album seem to have more depth and meaning than the current single suggests. In fact, this third major label release by Cold is the band's most emotionally charged album yet.
The songs, "The Day Seattle Died" and "Kill the Music Industry," hold self-explanatory titles. Other songs however, such as "Suffocate," "Cure My Tragedy (A Letter to God)," and "Don't Belong," suggest a more personal relevance, especially to lyricist Scooter Ward who faced extraordinary adversities previous to and during the making of this album.
It is these personal lyrics that make the album easy to relate to, and great at getting out anger or other emotions in the listening process.
The opening song, "Remedy," is one of the catchiest songs on the CD, (I'm already listening to it obsessively) and if this doesn't get you immediately hooked then nothing will.
The only downside to Spider is the fact that it starts out energetically but seems to lose that force as it progresses. This seems slightly disappointing and out of place at first, but luckily the album eventually regains its power in the end.
Cold's Year of the Spider is not an album to push off to the side this summer. If you haven't had a chance to hear it already, it is time to give it at least a listen and find out what you've been missing. You won't regret it.
- Diana Bignell