​In characteristic wry wit, Mardou front-person and songwriter Dylan McCartney postulates that it’s hard to be a band from Ohio that isn’t influenced by Guided by Voices. It shows in the Cincinnati post-punk quintet’s hooks, but also in their malleability. Over the course of its eleven songs, Cold Grasp boasts smoke-filled dance bangers like “Flash,” frenetic acid-fried nuggets like “Pan Aggressive” or “Flipper,” and gentle, beautiful ballads like “False Futures.” This variety translates lyrically too - McCartney’s words are boldly vulnerable, detailing meditations on love, destruction (self or otherwise), apathy, and consciousness.

It’s immediately apparent that the record has come from somewhere raw and deeply personal, but on final track “June,” McCartney treads a more idealistic ground. “But I died, came back in June,” he intones early in the song, illustrating his rebirth before crescendoing into a revelatory instrumental passage. A fitting send off to a record that relays both the sublime peaks and crushing depths we shoulder by being alive.

Mixed by both Doni Schroader (…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Our Dead) and Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring), Cold Grasp also marks the band at their most clear, loud, and precise.

RIYL: Pere Ubu, Guided by Voices, Iceage, Cloud Nothings, Protomartyr