Records such as “Ritual Abuse”, which was dropped by Relapse in October 2010, are of a rare kind. They tend to grow on you, they become addictive, and they get deep under your skin and stay there. How you get rid of them I don’t know, but I don’t care and don’t want to know. The doom underground scene across the whole world is talking about this four-piece unit from Richmond, Virginia and it’s no empty chatter. Taking some serious inspiration from Electric Wizard, the band worked out an extremely depressive form of crawling and grievous doom metal, which definitely resulted in some of the best records of 2010. Vocalist and bass player Parker Chandler tells us how it really is.

What I like about the “Ritual Abuse” sound is the fact that production is not over the top, with everything down-tuned, brutal and loud to the limits. It has been done before, so why bother? Did you do this on purpose?
Parker: Raw, down-tuned, brutal and loud? Sounds like a good combination to us. Why bother fucking with a good formula? That’s exactly what we wanted to accomplish.

How did you come up with using an acoustic guitar in some parts? Was it originally written that way, or did you come up with the idea later in the studio?
Parker: “Crooked Spine” song was written by David [Cisco, vocals & guitar] as an acoustic song. It was never meant to be a Cough song until we all heard it and decided we could do something different while staying grounded in doom. Putting the acoustic on the album just seemed appropriate given the roots of the song.

When you started Cough in 2005 what did you want it to be?
Parker: The loudest, heaviest band in Richmond.
“Ritual Abuse” cover art is probably the best I have seen in years. Could you say something about the artist and the work itself?
Parker: Glyn Smyth from Scrawled Design came up with it. Conceptually, it fits with our theme of being trapped in a situation where any move you make will only hurt you but you can’t sit still forever. He did a great job on the cover but I think he fucking killed it on the gatefold.

Do you care much about bands from Europe such as Electric Wizard, Hooded Menace or Katatonia? Do people in the doom/sludge/stoner scene in the US pay attention to European bands or they mostly stick to what’s happening in America?
Parker: European bands are pretty big over here, at least in the doom scene. Americans love the European doom bands. More of them need to come over here and fucking tour with us.

Is weed an inspiration to you? A means to get creative and write music?
Parker: It is what it is. We’ve written as much music sober as we have blazed or drunk. It’s not necessary to our creative process, we just enjoy it.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW AT WE WITHER BLOGSPOT

Interview By Adam Drzewucki ( The We Wither Blog )

Here is a short, straight to the point interview with Parker Chandler, bass player and vocalist for COUGH who are anything but typical. They get compared to a lot of bands but you know opinions are like assholes, everybody has one but COUGH stand alone with their brand of crushing Doom. They have released two of the greatest albums that needed to be made in the genre with Sigillum Luciferi in 2008 and this years, Ritual Abuse. * Sorry in advance for my crappy questions *

1. First up, congratulations on the new album. It seemed to take a while to get released, how long did you work on the album ?
We recorded the ‘Ritual Abuse’ in October of 2009.  We had been trying to write it since releasing ‘Sigillum Luciferi’ but we did some touring/had some issues and we didn’t really start making any progress until the beginning of 2009.

2. I would like to turn the clock back a little here and talk about your early days as a band. The first album came out of nowhere for me and blew me away but I gather there was a lot of work getting to that point. Can you tell the readers about those early days of the band ?
When we started jamming we had all been friends who would hang out and listen to a lot of Melvins, Cavity, Eyehategod and shit like that.  That’s probably reflected on our first release (the Kingdom EP).  It’s a bit more southern and up-tempo at times.  People probably thought it was a lot more fun back then.

3. The band gets compared to Electric Wizard a lot which is something rather unfair in my book as there is more to the band than that. Did you model yourself on any band when you first started ?
There was no band that we set out to be like.  The Electric Wizard comparisons are gonna happen because people just regurgitate what they hear other people saying.

4. How has the business relationship been with Relapse so far ?
It’s been cool.  We’re finally figuring out who to email about what questions, etc.  The promotion is ridiculous (in a good way).  We went into it expecting nothing so it’s hard to be disappointed.

5. You have been on the road a lot lately, how has that been going so far ?
We just got back from playing 34 shows in 37 days.  Overall, it was a success.  We made it home.

6. How has been the reviews for the new album and do you really care about reviewers opinions ?
It’s cool to hear what people have to say but we don’t put a lot of stock in it.  Anybody with a computer can talk shit but, for the most part, if they’re writing about it online they’re not out there doing it.  That’s the only thing I respect.  That being said, the reviews have been mostly positive.

7. When you went in to record “Ritual Abuse,” what was the band’s mindset like at the time. Was it a concerted effort by the band to blow the first album away or do something different. The album to me seems like a logical progression from the first album.
We just recorded the songs we’d written.  Basically everything we had worked on over the 2 years between records.  We knew that it was a progression, things had gotten more melodic, and we’d gone through a slight line-up change but all the music was written by the same 3 people that have written it all along.  We just wanted to make another Cough record.

8. Also, the split album you did with The Wounded Kings has one of the best Cough tracks ever in my opinion. How the hell did you manage to sit on that one for so long ?
We didn’t sit on it at all.  That song was written the weekend before we went into recording.  We’d had the concept and some of the riffs prepared but I think that sleep deprivation really played a large part in the creation of that song.

9. The doom-metal community can be a fickle bunch at times. You can be “the band of the month” and disappear into obscurity shortly after. So what is your opinion on the scene overall, I know every scene has its assholes but how do you rate the scene as a whole ?
I think the internet doom crowd can be a bunch of assholes.  The people we meet in real life are always cool, always down to help us with a place to crash or free drugs.

10. I hope I am not out-of-line here but the new album seems like a more mature effort from the band while still remaining true to the sound of the band. Apart from the obvious growing older element, was there a need within the band to express things in a mature fashion ?
Things just got more serious.  Getting older fucking sucks.  Even at a relatively young age we’re all dealing with health problems as a result of not treating our bodies well.  We work shit jobs.  We lived in a warehouse for a period while writing the record and that only caused more problems.  Basically, after a certain point, the fun is over.  That’s kinda where we are now and where we were at while writing this record.

11. The sound the band gets is vintage but with a thick, modern heaviness. What equipment do you use and how was the new album recorded. It sounds very analog but it also sounds like some really old vintage equipment was used.
Sanford’s got some older synths and stuff that he likes to use on the records and we’ve got a couple 1970’s guitar and bass heads that we like to use.  We love the vintage gear, anything being made nowadays is shit as far as I’m concerned.

12. How much do you really love doom and sludge ? Could you play slow and heavy forever or is there the constant temptation to play faster, lighter music ?
There is no temptation to play anything lighter/faster.  We like to keep it dark and real.  If we had anything positive to say we probably wouldn’t be playing music.

13. Could you tell the readers about some of the lyrics ? They are dark and somewhat evil but is there hidden meanings to some of the songs ?
There’s nothing really hidden.  Some of the songs are metaphors for futility, drugs, or worthlessness but the rest typically deal with our personal feelings of depression and death.

14. So what has the band got planned for 2011 ?
We’re touring Europe in 2011 and hitting Roadburn while we’re over there.  Aside from that, hopefully we’ll do more touring of the US, maybe Canada.  We really wanna take some time off the road and write some new songs but you gotta get out there while people still give a shit about the new record.

15. Thanks for putting up with my somewhat predictable questions ha ha. Any last words for the readers ?
Check our shit out and form your own opinion.  Stay tuned into doommantia.com because he knows what the fuck is up!
Official Website
Cough @ MySpace.com

There is a thread running at the The Doommantia Forum discussing who be the next biggest bands in Doom Metal and the two bands on this killer split album would have to be two of the bands destined to take it to the next level of “Doom Metal” glory. Cough have blown minds with their two full lengths releases to date, “Sigillum Luciferi” and “Ritual Abuse” while The Wounded Kings have been equally as impressive with their “Embrace of the Narrow House” and “The Shadow Over Atlantis” albums. The bands are very different from each other so on paper this split album may seem like an unlikely combination but not only does it work, the bands actually compliment each other. Cough play with so much misanthropic conviction that they are quickly becoming the new leaders of the style with the admittedly unfortunate musical tag, “Stoner-Doom.” The Wounded Kings are a more traditional, prog-laced Doom Metal act with their roots in Occultism and Horror. These two new masters of doom and gloom team up for one epic-song each that stretches the total running time of this split past the 34 minute mark. Titled “An Introduction to the Black Arts” it is indeed a perfect introduction to two bands that are both driven by occultist themes and general riff worship.

Cough’s track titled “The Gates of Madness” was recorded at the same time as the “Ritual Abuse” album but style-wise it is closer to the tortured sound that had on “Sigillum Luciferi” than their current full-length album. The track begins with the sound of amplifiers decaying and guitars rotting but eventually a grisly riff comes to life like a hideous Frankenstein monster. Their nasty, caustic crawling brand of doom is built around slow-motion tortured grooves with painfully elongated passages. The vocals on the other hand are raw and filled with pain while the bass and the drums are locked in with an unrestrained power and precision. A while into the track vocals become cleaner and this is when the band hits its stride and sounds the most like Electric Wizard and other more conventional forms of Doom, funny now how we think of EW as conventional but there you go. You get some psychedelic lead guitar and the track comes to feedback-laden ending after close to 20 minutes. This is without a doubt one of the most unhinged Cough songs ever recorded but it is surprisingly easy to listen to as this song flows and is expertly arranged for what it is….hellish Doom Metal.

The Wounded Kings track, “Curse of Chains” is of course very different but equally as punishing. It is the first track with guitarist Steve Mills and guitarist/vocalist George Birch joining forces with bassist Luke Taylor and drummer Nick Collings making The Wounded Kings a complete line-up. Not that the bands sound was lacking before anyway but these guys make their début here and it is a welcome introduction as this song is classic Wounded Kings material. In classic traditional Doom Metal fashion, the song builds slowly with riffs and swirling lead being backed up with organ before the vocals finally come in 5 minutes into the murky dirge. As the song moves on it becomes increasingly more complex with multi-layered guitars and organ. The vocals are thin but effective and increased the atmospheric quality of the piece with their despairing, despondent lyrics. The progressive rock elements are subtle but effective at building the song and making it flow better and it ends with a painfully, sorrowful piano outro concluding a bleak but powerful piece of emotional Doom Metal.

This album serves as a wonderful introduction to both these bands and both these songs demonstrate Doom-Metal song-building at its very best and most compelling. Both bands do multi-section pieces that flow remarkably well and never get dull. Usually with split albums, one band comes off better than the other but in the case of “An Introduction to the Black Arts,” it is really hard to pick a favorite track out of these two monsters. For people who need no such introduction to these two bands, it is still worth getting for the one of the best Cough tracks ever and to hear the Wounded Kings with their new line-up so it is a win-win situation with this split-album and look at the album art, it rules. Two bands, two masters of their craft, this is a no-brainer, essential…………..10/10
Cough Official Website
Cough @ MySpace.com
Official Cough Facebook
The Wounded Kings Official Myspace

Somehow I have the idea that this band is going to be big! Set for release in the US on the 26th of October and the 1st of November in Europe & UK on Relapse Records, Ritual Abuse is the successor to Cough’s Sigillum Luciferi. What I like about Cough? For one thing, the vocals do remind me of Electric Wizard – carrying, penetrating and ‘evil’ in it’s nicest form. That is to say, the imagery is maybe familiar (Satan, etcetera) but the interpretation is very entertaining. Further, the riffs are outstanding, and set very loosely, so while listening to Ritual Abuse, you’ll get deeper and deeper in some sort of state of subjugation. In the background you’ll hear lots of sound effects, and this adds to the spooky atmosphere. Ritual Abuse is actually a very good title for this album, since Cough’s Ritual Abuse can be described as ritualistic in its very experience.
The riffs are massive and the five tracks named Mind Collapse; A Year In Suffering; Crippled Wizard; Crooked Spine, and Ritual Abuse are all tributes to the same power of the Riff.

You can check out their song Crooked Spine for free on their myspace by the way, see the address below. On their Relapse artist page, they state the following on their new album; “Ritual Abuse is the result of all the shit and suffering we put ourselves through to continue to write this music. Hopefully you all feel as miserable listening to it as we did creating it.” I think that’s very (very) funny, because I felt pretty happy happy joy joy while listening to Ritual Abuse! As if anyone listening to doom should be depressed in the first place to be able to thoroughly enjoy the music. When I’m listening to Darkthrone or Mayhem (to name an example), I’m not in a ‘metal’ state of mind, or in a miserable state of mind, quite the contrary. I can wildly laugh about the imagery and the guzzling lyrics of said black metal, and still be able to enjoy the music offered. Granted, in real life the guys from Cough may not be your happiest chums, but their music can be very entertaining.

The only shortcoming on this disc is maybe the lack of long-term memorable songs. Of course, Electric Wizard has all these hooks and stuff, and when Cough evolves in their songwriting, the next album can only be a total winner. Cough do a full US tour in November 2010, and a European tour in 2011. As a warmer, here a fragment of their debut show at Ramakins. You know it’s gonna be good! 9/10
Review By Sandrijn van den Oever

Cough @ Myspace
Cough @ Facebook
Cough @ Relapse