Cougar - Patriot (Album)

The name ‘post-rock’ has been a real cliché for a good few years now. As valid and vital as bands like Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor are, and have been, the term quickly became a cue for fans and critics alike to snigger into their sleeves at earnest, tired 20 minute quiet-quiet-quiet-quiet-loud-quiet-loud-quiet-quiet pieces. So, imagine my dismay on commencing my research into Cougar, when I found them to be a band to whom the dreaded ‘p**t-r**k’ label has been attached fairly liberally. Really though, while they may suggest very occasional and gentle whispers of post-rock, by and large this a case of mis-classification, presumably instigated (at least in part) by over-zealous last.fm taggers.

While they don’t have much in common with Godspeed et al, we can draw certain parallels between Cougar and the likes of Vessels and Errors (also decidedly NOT post-rock). But where these bands take occasional precise, clinical cues from math-rock elements, Cougar imbue their ‘not-really post-rock’ sound with fuzzy West-coast psych influences akin to Wooden Shjips on this, their second album, Patriot.

All in all Patriot is an appealing, if slightly patchy listen. It is arguably at its best when the instruments are jacked up to full power, and the fantastic guitars weave and crash around some of the most creative and engaging drumming I’ve heard in years.

One thing Cougar can not be accused of is a dearth of ideas. Patriot is adorned by plenty of really inventive snippets, like the glitchy loveliness that appears intermittently over the course of the record, or the creepy choral bits on ‘Rhineland‘.

Maddeningly, in spite of its obvious strong points, and such high watermarks as ‘Get Famous’ or ‘Daunte V.Armada’, the album wanders off course too often for us to be able to hold it up as a classic. It has a stubborn tendency to drift, bobbing pleasantly along on auto-pilot for minutes at a time, meaning you’ll be tearing your hair out, because the album has already proved beyond doubt that Cougar have the capability to enthral. And not just with the loud bits, either, because Patriot isn’t that shallow a record. ‘Pelourinho’, for example, shows a wonderful lightness of touch, with its soothing, nursery rhyme refrain.

Perhaps the most telling fact about Patriot is the fact that the first real surprise it offers is on its closing track ‘Absaroka’. This is a beautiful, vulnerable piece of instrumentation. It’s not the first example of Cougar’s ear for melody, but it’s definitely the most devastatingly effective. One plus point is at least the album goes out on a marked high.

Cougar are a phenomenally tight band, with precocious flair and creativity. In Patriot they have produced a record which shows them to be well worth our time. That said, it’s difficult to escape the nagging frustration brought about by the album’s occasional lullls, because you get the impression that this could have been an incredible piece of work. Instead though, we’ll take comfort in the fact that it shows enormous potential, and suggests that sooner or later this lot will deliver something really special.