3 out of 5

Label: Expert Work Records

Produced by: Shane Hochstetler

Popping up in the early 00s, Cougars effected their noise with punk rock aplomb and a sense of humor, allowing a sense of chaos in their sound – which once included synths and horns – to ping-pong reviews between praise and insults. A couple decades past that, and noise rock and the music scene have “evolved,” from early internet allowing buzz to spread wide faster than ever before, to 2020s internet creating and killing buzz within minutes. Music is in a free-for-all, and it’s hard to find a spot to stand out.

Better, then, to just do your own thing, and Cougars’ version of that on Cougs is to kind of split the difference between their noise rock and their chaotic tendencies, bringing in producer Shane Hochstetler to hammer things into concise bangers of 3 or 4 minutes apiece. Along the way, we’ve slimmed down to just traditional guitars, bass, and drums, making that “split” sound… like a fair amount of noise rock we’ve heard before. To my ears, that comes across as a Big’N / Call Me Lightning frankenstein, which makes sense – members and producers from both of those bands are here – but it’s unfortunate that COUGS can’t quite get out of that sounds-like space, with the always-on shouted vocals fighting for space with the constant melody changeups from the music. Unfortunate doesn’t make the album bad, by any means – far from it – but tracks really shine when some space and patience is let in to focus more on instrumentals, like the breakdowns on Stiff Wind or some of the build-up of closer America’s Song; elsewhere things undeniably rock, just not in a definitive way.

As has happened with other bands that have faded and returned a while on, it sometimes takes a warmup release to get things going again, even if members have remained active with other acts or touring. I appreciate that Cougars didn’t try to add-in synths and horns to recapture something from the past, but there’s still a sense that COUGS is haunted by the band’s legacy, and held back from developing a fully modernized evolution on the band’s sound.