Album Reviews

- by Tom Dumarey

The Coathangers are back! No wait, that didn’t quite capture my excitement... THE COATHANGERS ARE BACK!!

There, that’s better.

On their sixth album, the Atlanta powerhouse trio continue to do everything we have come to know and love them for, but do it even better this time around. The vitriolic, snarky attitude is still very much there, as are the melodies and the rifffage. What is new though is the fact that they fool around with dynamics more than they have ever done before. They open with the deceivingly poppy ‘Bimbo’ before diving into the nervously buzzing ‘5 Farms’ and then slow things down to a creepy crawl in the menacing ‘Crimson Telephone’. And that’s just the first three songs.

Elsewhere on the album, they treat us to the equally menacing ‘Step Back’ while the hard-rockin’ mission statement that is ‘Fuck The NRA’ leaves little to the imagination. Another album highlight comes in the form of the L7-esque ‘Stranger Danger’ while the haunting, sparse ‘Lithium’ is a formidable closing track that made me think of both Nirvana at their most quiet and Lana Del Rey at the same time. If that sounds like a weird combo... well, it works just fine on The Coathangers’ new album.

Track listing:

1. Bimbo
2. 5 Farms
3. Crimson Telephone
4. Hey Buddy
5. Step Back
6. Stranger Danger
7. F the NRA
8. Memories
9. Last Call
10. Stasher
11. Lithium