Aberdeen quartet Cold Years have today released ‘Too Far Gone,’ the latest track to be lifted from the band’s highly anticipated, forthcoming debut album, Paradise (pre-order).
“Too Far Gone came from being in a pretty bad place, not knowing what the future was going to hold and being alone,” says Cold Years frontman Ross Gordon. “I’d pushed partying too hard and I felt like I was just wasting my time. You get to that point where you just give up trying because everything falls to crap regardless. We come from a small town and I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as all the same people, I just wanted to be alone and didn’t want to talk to anyone.
I needed to release all those emotions from everything that had happened to me up until that point, I guess you have to write these kinds of songs, being in this band is a cathartic process for all of us. I’ve always felt like a lot of the songs on this record were about things that were gonna come in the future, this song was me looking deep into how I was feeling at the time and using it to escape.”
As the true sound of worldwide youth disaffection post-Trump and post-Brexit, the songs of Paradise – a sarcastic snarl aimed at the band’s remote hometown – burst from the speakers with a ‘clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose’ spirit. Spring-boarding off timelessly vintage-tinged sounds and fuelled by lung-busting choruses buffed-up through a modern-day, blue-collar punk rock sheen, Paradise captures the anger and frustration vocalist Ross Gordon feels for a generation in decline.
“There’s an ongoing narrative about how messed everything is at the moment,” Gordon says of the thread that ties otherwise disparate themes together. “It links everything, really, not just purely politics: It’s linked to the economy, to drugs and alcohol, and what our generation is going through right now. You work hard in school, you train for your career and you try to succeed at it, but the reality is that none of it really matters. It’s a record that’s angry because, as a generation, we feel like we’ve been sold short.”
Naturally, the creation of an album instilled with such an inflamed sense of injustice didn’t come without its difficulties. It was a challenging process that often tested the collective patience of the quartet, completed by guitarist Finlay Urquhart, bassist Louis Craighead, and drummer Fraser Allan. But such was the passion that each member invested into it, paired with an indomitable spirit, that the band has made good on the past few years of promise. Rather than rushing out a record for the sake of expediency, taking time to reflect, be honest, and pour everything the band had into the process has made for a set of songs that will endure and stand the Scots in admirable stead. After all, you only get one shot at making your first album, so you better make it the best it can be.
Considering the unforgiving, harsh, and often dismal depths from which Paradise was born, it’s an album that strives for optimism, and Cold Years know who they are and staying true to their roots. And despite a journey ahead that promises to send them far and wide, they won’t ever forget where they came from even if it is rubbish.
