The Cool Greenhouse new single is ‘Get Unjaded’ and it starts like the soundtrack to the wonkiest over sitcom ever conceived. Simon has lost his pet lamprey (“his only source of intimacy”), he spins in circles to radio static and watches ‘Can’t Cook Won’t Cook’. Someone should commission this immediately. Musically there’s the reassuring jagged repetition of guitar and Tom Greenhouse’s singsong spoken word delivery which sits somewhere in a Venn diagram of ambivalence, incredulity, amusement and resignation. Drums are metronome tight and bass and percussion duck and dive around the track with giddy panache.
As they did with their eponymous last album, The Cool Greenhouse unpack the weirdness and worry of modern life and are disillusioned with television’s “violence upon violence up violence” preferring to spend their time meditating on the cold hard ground or watching Slime ASMR videos. It feels like they are benign aliens who settled in the north-west of England trying to make sense of our culture by describing humanity with their unique use of language. My favourite line is “I think I can still see the joy in people, like I can see the ghosts of dinosaurs in birds” with a notable mention for the unjaded synonyms of “untangled”, “unstifled” and “unfrazzled”.
Like gaming savants, The Cool Greenhouse are able to chain their ideas together into a semantic strike that would win any boss battle. They might not have all the answers, but they are definitely asking the right questions, raising the right amount of eyebrow and righteously shining their laser pointer trying to locate those small moments that makes sense.
The Cool Greenhouse Tom Greenhouse (vocals, guitar), Kevin Barthelemy (drums), Chris Morris (keyboards), Thom Mason (bass) and Tom O’Driscoll (guitar).
The track is taken from their forthcoming second album Sod’s Toastie which you can order as a download or as a limited edition yellow and black splatter vinyl with 12″ art print, The Cool Greenhouse logo temporary tattoo and a track exclusive the vinyl ‘The Next Stage Of Destiny’.
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Review by Paul F Cook
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