EP REVIEW: The Body Is The Wound – Cold In Berlin
We tend to dwell on things; the negatives that we experience in our lives, ticking over in our heads late at night, sneaking in as you doze off on an early morning commute, anchoring ourselves for weeks on end. COLD IN BERLIN refuse to let the negatives be just that, instead using them as an opportunity for growth and furthering themselves. That’s the goal for multi-record project The Wounds, and introducing the journey that the quartet set out on in 2024 is the EP The Body Is The Wound. With four tracks recruiting themes of murder, suicide, sex, and more, COLD IN BERLIN incorporate dark and twisted atmospheres that suck you down this plug hole of melancholy.
Unveiling the curtain on opening track Dream One you’re met with doom-driven guitars and vocalist Maya Berlin’s stunning voice cuts through you like an icicle, paralysed experiencing an unconscious grief with Berlin. Interestingly, the lyrics remain non-specific to one person, widely applicable to any of us which only immerses you deeper into the track. COLD IN BERLIN hop around a little bit between what sonics they choose to create their rich atmospheres for you to wallow in. At points there’s doom, avant-garde, post-punk, even some nods to krautrock along the way, shifting each track in a slightly different direction. It’s commendable for bands in alternative genres to take the risk and sit on the border of so many different sounds, some that even conflict with each other, because it’s so easy for a record to become stagnant these days and especially when it’s part of a project that has such big ambition such as The Wounds.
The biggest appeal of COLD IN BERLIN has to be the drama that they concoct; Spotlight slowly builds up drums in tandem with guitars that draw out their cries, Berlin’s vocals howl over wind carried by an enormous capacity to swell as time goes on, singing “Dance slowly, pretend that this is not the last time” to conclude a morbid and sorrowful tale. They pick up the pace before bowing out in When Did You See Her Last? where the bass becomes extraordinarily overbearing to hammer in the darkness of the closer, sodden with a sadistic story. COLD IN BERLIN know exactly where to exaggerate.
Returning after nearly five years, this quartet have changed their tune, delivering a macabre body of work which is merely a prelude of what is to come later on this year during The Wound saga. The Body Is The Wound is a truly engrossing EP that refuses to let its listeners go until the bitter end. Where some of the themes get muddy, COLD IN BERLIN more than make up for it in grandeur and s-tier performance.
Rating: 8/10
The Body Is The Wound is set for release on January 19th via New Heavy Sounds.
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