Cowards- World Champions in Male Chastity (2014)

This album came out of nowhere.  I have seen almost no press for it whatsoever, and that is sad given how great this thing is.  I know nothing about the band, but rather than research them to give you background, I'm just gonna skip that step and describe this album.

World Champions in Male Chastity is a diverse album as far as noise rock goes.  the album features a male and female singer, but no tracks have them sharing vocals.  with the first few tracks, the male vocalist leads, with a mixture of spoken/sung words.  By the third track, "Butter Tooth", I was starting to fall into the groove of their sound and it begin to really sink in with me.  Once the fifth track, "Let's Talk About Our Feelings", came along I was thrown for a loop.  The female vocalist starts the track off with a great crooning sound, only immediately to start singing "I'll show you my parts, if you show me yours".  Over the next few tracks, this lady kills it and really changes the momentum of the album.  At times, like on "Daughters Touching Fathers" the group has an early Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound (with lyrics that reminded me of the great Yusef Komunyaa poem 'Stepfather: A Girl's Song).

For the final few tracks the album comes back to the sound of how it opened.  By this time, the change felt great, and "The Ballard of Low Looker and Button Eye" is a fantastic closing track.  Since I found this album I find myself coming back to it more and more.  I can almost guarantee this album will be in my 2014 list at the end of the year, so I suggest that you take a moment to see why.

Listen to the album Here, and support them any way you can, cause they deserve it.