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Feb 05, 2025 Web Exclusive By Nick Roseblade

Cowards is the strongest album Squid has released to date. It feels like a distillation of their nine-year existence into 45-minutes of music. After the swaggering pomp of Bright Green Fields and intricate complexity of O, Monolith, Cowards feels like they’ve taken a less is more approach.

“Crispy Skin” kicks things off in fine form. The synth intro quickly dissolves into throbbing bass, thumping drums, and killer melodies. It starts the album with a propulsive poppy nod. As the LP progresses things get more skewed. “Cro-Magnon Man” is an absolute bop filled with massive hooks and bombastic ideas. This will go off live! The album closes with its stand out moment, “Well Met (Fingers Through the Fence).” The song starts with the sound of a bike wheel spinning. This ends up making the hook of the song. Vocal harmonies, hypnotic synths, deep basslines, horns, and a baroque interlude make this one of the finest Squid songs to date. This experimentalism is a delight to hear. It shows that despite making a more direct album, they still have time to try something different as long as it benefits the track.

The songs on Cowards have a real bounce to them but there is something sinister lurking beneath the surface. It’s not threatening. It’s not aggressive, but it’s not entirely welcoming either. It’s a puzzling anomaly that really makes the album a joy to listen to again, and again and again. Cowards is a brave album to make at this point in their career. They could have phoned it in. Released an album full of “Houseplants,” “The Dial,” or “The Cleaner” type songs. But where is the fun in that? Instead, they’ve pushed themselves to release something daring instead. No cowards here. Only bangers! (www.squidband.uk)

Author rating: 9/10