{"id":14686,"date":"2018-06-09T05:30:13","date_gmt":"2018-06-09T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14686"},"modified":"2018-06-07T08:27:09","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T12:27:09","slug":"ep-review-cordova-runaway-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/09\/ep-review-cordova-runaway-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"EP Review: Cordova \u2013 Runaway Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14684\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/cordova.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/cordova.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/cordova-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/cordova-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>The heavy chunka-chunka guitars and scream that kick off \u201cHiding\u201d tip off the listener that <i>Runaway Summer<\/i> is going to be a growling, black metal extravaganza. But the tricky meter and pummeling yet precise drum work \u2013 even in those first few seconds \u2013 suggests something perhaps more nuanced. And when the vocals come in (though the heaviness remains) it\u2019s clear that there\u2019s more gong on here than expected:the song\u2019s feel is closer to the hardest of hard rock than any kind of Scandinavian death music.<\/p>\n<p>The vocals are clear and out front, and there are event bits of vocal harmony. With interesting (if despairing) lyrics, Cordova reveals itself to have some very melodic ideas; it\u2019s simply that the band chooses the couch those ideas (on this cut, at least) in an ambitious arrangement. There are hints of <i>The Incident<\/i>-era Porcupine Tree, but then a bridge heads in an almost AOR direction. The band is all over the place stylistically, all in the course of a three-minute song But somehow it works.<\/p>\n<p>The three remaining tracks on <i>Runaway Summer<\/i> show that \u201cHiding\u201d is something of a red herring: the New Mexico-based bad\u2019s overall musical approach is less metallic and more mainstream rock. And that\u2019s fine: the songs are strong, the vocals are emotive and effectively delivered, and the band is tight. The title track is a modern version of swaggering 1970s arena rock.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrigger Happy\u201d combines an almost pop sort of guitar figure with a heavy, \u201890s grunge aesthetic; the combined effect draws from the best of both styles. Cordova\u2019s economy of songwriting \u2013 none of the four concise songs on the EP even threatens to wear out its welcome \u2013 is among its strengths. The EP closes with \u201cWeighted,\u201d another example of the successful marrying of styles that makes <i>Runaway Summer<\/i> a worthwhile listen. By definition, an EP is short on content, but the band promises multiple releases to follow in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The heavy chunka-chunka guitars and scream that kick off \u201cHiding\u201d tip off the listener that Runaway Summer is going to be a growling, black metal extravaganza. But the tricky meter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[3448],"class_list":["post-14686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-cordova","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14687,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14686\/revisions\/14687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}