New Albums
THE COLD STARES
Heavy Shoes MASCOT
6/10
Darkness pervades Indiana-based duo’s fifth LP in seven years
A cancer survivor with a brutal backstory, Chris Tapp burrows into the dark side of his existence on Heavy Shoes, hammering the bass strings of his guitar to grind out heavy riffage on nearly interchangeable tracks like “Take This Body From Me”, “Hard Times” and “Prosecution Blues”. Here, as on their previous LPs, Tapp and drummer Brian Mullins are perpetuating a Midwestern brand of blue-collar blooze rock that’s been around since the ’60s in the service of emotional exorcism. The album is so suffocatingly grim that the appearance of the spare, syncopated garage rocker “In The Night Time” is a massive relief, suggesting a possible lifeline for a band drowning in despair.