The Cold Beat – dumbwaiter

Massachusetts’s rock bands tend to have a real working class essence to them.  The type that evoke images of small town boys in coveralls, wearing dirty caps and holding foaming pints of cheap lager.  Their voices are hoarse and worn, and their melodies straight forward and to the point.  Poster boys for the Massachusetts underground include bands like Dropkick Murphys and the Street Dogs.  But behind each front-runner is a backdrop of other talented startups.  Hailing from the simple, relatively unknown Massachusetts neighbourhood of Allston, The Cold Beat is one of those notable background players.

Much like their music, the band doesn’t feature any grand story beyond a bunch of friends in the same scene jamming together.  Their members hail from other small startups from past and present, includingWhere The Land Meets the Sea, Lock and Key, The Call Up, inblackanwhite, and The Murder Mile, but seem to shed their influences in favour of a more straight forward rock’n roll formula.  The Cold Beat doesn’t try anything special on their debut EP, dumbwaiter, and they embrace it.  There’s even a section during the intro of one of the later tracks, “Comfortably Clean,” I which the band inserts a clip where a man with a noticeable Chinese accent explains how to construct a rock’n roll song, right down to the placement of the “snare drums” and “playing the high head.”  It’s a self-satire that helps the listener forgive the band for being pretty average in most respects.

The Cold Beat’s debut reminds me of another debut I reviewed earlier this year by a band named Only Thieves.  But while I felt Only Thieves come up short of being memorable, The Cold Beat seem to have reached that elusive level of achieving enjoyment in predictability.  In other words, dumbwaiter’s unremarkable nature helps rather than hinders the release.  Tracks like “Watch and Ward,” “I Wanna Be Free,” and “Antiquing” are memorable in style rather than substance.  It’s an EP where each song relies on the strength of the whole rather than independent personalities and hooks.  As a whole the six tracks feel like an – excuse the clichéd metaphor – old shoe: relaxed, comfortable, and inoffensive.

Lyrically, the band revels in their working class lifestyle, referencing the usual spread of bar themes, referencing “drinking cheap red wine” to “working overtime.”  Lead vocalist Chris Amaral sings in a coarse, whiskey soaked manner typical of those like Lucero, contributing to the band’s working class feel.  Much like the music, it’s simple, common, and above all effective.

The Cold Beat’s debut EP personifies the Massachusetts underground.  Dumbwaiter is a gritty, dirty, dose of rock’n roll played with a punk’s heart.  Recommended for fans of solid, straight forward punk-rock.