Cop Shoot Cop
Suck City EP

THE REVIEW

Those who have had the chance to know Mr. Tod A., who in the last fifteen years has led the cosmopolitan Firewater, might indeed find it hard to identify the key traits behind the microphone of the daring noise-rockers Cop Shoot Cop, a project defunct for more than fifteen years following the release of their fourth and final album, "Release," back in 1994.

The theoretical "effort" is not caused, as often happens, by the inadequacy of the original proposal, but by the vast structural distance that separates the two (three, a thousand...) artistic and human stories of our globetrotting vocalist: with roots firmly planted in the most direct and disheveled sound produced by New York’s noise-rock school, Tod and his fellow eardrum-destroyers were part of the uncommon company of artists who loved to heavily put themselves into play, continuously reshuffling the numerous cards at their disposal and methodically organizing their tumultuous evolution, arriving over time at a less jarring, increasingly recognizable, and personal song form.

In the instance under examination, a four-track EP released in 1992, the quartet finds itself exactly halfway across the ford: in the still rebellious sound filled with industrial-derived noises there lurks a clear evolutionist tendency that leads them to create a kind of edgy mutant rock with a noteworthy specific weight: "We Shall Be Changed" at the opening of the B-side is much more than a statement of intent in this sense.

It’s clear that those who love to be delighted by the rustic, enjoyable, multifaceted potpourri of the band with an operational base in Istanbul might be decidedly bewildered when faced with the total rock urgency composed of the intersection of double basses and counter-drums, used almost intimidatingly, amid heavy clangs and abrasive guttural declamations of our trusted wanderer.

An album with finely corrosive traits: the risk is that of a salvific intoxication.