Cold
Year of the Spider

THE REVIEW

Jacksonville, Florida, year of our Lord 2003.

Four lively young men known to most as Cold, after having jostled quite a bit with the excellent "13 Ways To Bleed on Stage," throw this very fitting "Year Of The Spider" onto the market, a record for everyone, children of the '90s, friends of NuMetal, various and eventual melancholics.

For the writer, this is practically the last Cold album, as I consider "A Different Kind of Pain" a load of rubbish of BIBLICAL proportions.
Thus, there's little trace of the raw "Cold" here, little remains of the already mentioned "13 Ways To Bleed on Stage," in our ears, we find a different work, in some ways more mature, in some ways more marketable.

The album's production is entrusted to Howard Benson, already with Motorhead, Adema, Crazytown, P.O.D., and Sepultura, a man who hasn’t missed anything.
Benson has the demerit, or merit, of having completely reshaped the band's sound, which appeared rotten and dirty in the previous work (functional to the song's register, it must be said), and makes it powerful, hyper-compressed and if we want, even a little glossy, he also has the time to throw in some string sections here and there.

Our guys, savvy as ever, also change their songwriting by winking at ballads, proving they can compose them, as evidenced by the excellent "Wasted Years"; the heavy tracks, on the other hand, are a little more aligned with the Nu trend that was rampant in those years, perhaps due to the production.

There’s a lot of acoustic guitar on this album, many clean passages, it almost doesn’t even seem like listening to the band of "thirteen ways to bleed on stage," if it weren’t for Scooter Ward's unmistakable voice, and the ornaments in the arrangement phase by the excellent Kelly Hayes (who at the time of this album had a TAMARRA LIKE FEW ESP eclipse signature, n.d.r.).

Let's analyze some passages of the CD: it starts with "Remedy", powerful and direct, great as an opener definitely, immediately followed by the big single "Suffocate," which stayed in my head for weeks, a truly great track, you'll rarely find it forgettable, it's the track that drives the album, and you can feel it.
Up to here, nothing new, more or less, compared to what we’ve heard from our guys before, but when "Cure My Tragedy" starts, it’s clear that something has changed, the track takes on calmer tones than usual, the heavy guitars are still there but seem to serve almost just as a carpet rather than a sound wall; we return to the glories of old with "Stupid Girl" for which a video was also made, "Don't Belong" is the song of the lot that most resembles the tracks from the much-mentioned previous work, oppressive and pressing.

At this point, there’s an unexpected break, "Wasted Years" starts, and you hear a string section, acoustic guitars, but is it Cold? Yes, and Scooter's voice is heard fully, a great piece, unexpected, as commercial as you want but beautiful.

The tones and originality drop a bit from here on "Whatever You Became", "Sad Happy" and "Change The World" are a bit anonymous if you like, fortunately, there are "Rain Song" and "The Day Seattle Died" in between to lift the fortunes of the listening experience.

The acoustic guitars return with "Black Sunday", a tried formula, an acoustic verse and heavy guitars in the chorus, this penultimate track does its job well.
The lot closes with "Kill The Music Industry", a brief taste of the Cold that were, followed by a bonus track whose title I don’t know, another significant ballad, significant for understanding the group’s musical turn.

As I said earlier, for me, this is the last good Cold album, the departure of the ubiquitous Terry Balsamo (Is there a group he hasn’t played in?) and the eclectic Kelly Hayes (who went on to do Allele released simultaneously with the last Cold, and he gave it a lot of crap), really left poor Scooter in a mess, who, for as talented as he is, as expressive as he is, couldn’t pull off anything of this kind anymore.

I give the album a 3, and I’m really sorry, I have a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth for a small missed masterpiece, there are some stunning tracks mostly distributed in the first half of the album, unfortunately, there are also some tedious fillers.
A few less tracks and a couple of more convincing songs, and a 4 would be assured.

That said, an album still enjoyable, ideal on rainy days, skipping some tracks won’t be a problem when a piece like "Suffocate" resonates from the speakers.