Cortez Demo

Oh, this is nice. All three tracks on here are very different: not quite a coherent whole, but the songs are all very likeable indeed, especially the white noise-laden experimental bits which slam into the ears with unstoppable force. As happens on first track, 'Construction', which masquerades as straight-forward glam-tinged rock. Until the bridge arrives.

Then the previously normal riff sinks under a wall of echo and warped guitars, resurfacing briefly in a warped form of its former self before the whole thing disintegrates and fades out into nothing. 'If I Wished Death on You' takes things down a gear with its slurred-out vocal, slow, sauntering melancholy, and the calming, reassuring nursery rhyme quality of its
rise-and-fall repetition. Despite being decidedly ballad-esque it has a pleasingly massive sound: not one of those limp and lifeless numbers which taint too many demos.Third and final track 'Unforgotten' starts with a threatening chime of guitar under a vocal which sounds as though it's in a trance as the sound underneath it fades. And then explodes, erupting into a howling, windswept tune with swarming layers of sound added andthen subtracted so that the tangled tune veers in and out at you. Over all this the vocal grows until
each syllable is laid down with an uncompromising and definite thud. At the finish the whole thing is swamped by another wave of abstract white noise, which pushes, pushes and pushes at the eardrums before an abrupt,
unprotesting ending. It's the kind of song which one imagines having a base, elemental feel to the live sound which would sweep the audience off its
feet. The other two tracks are pretty good. This one, which gives the impression of being more Cortez's own than the other two, is damn good. Hunt it down.

cortezrock.co.uk

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