They’re back. Who, might you ask? Your Demise, the veterans of hardcore/punk from St. Albans, UK. After releasing two of my favourite albums (Ignorance Never Dies and The Kids We Used To Be) in 2009 and 2010 respectively, Your Demise released The Golden Age, which I (and many others) thought was a major flop. Your Demise seemed to take more of a punk/rock approach with The Golden Age, as several of the tracks on the album were suitable for your local radio station. Now, however, Your Demise has went back to their roots.
Kicking off the EP is the previously released “Karma”, and just a few seconds in, you already get the feeling that Cold Chillin’ is a much more hardcore-oriented release than The Golden Age. “Karma” is loaded with heavy chugs, especially in the second half of the song. Following “Karma” is “A Song To No-One”, the second of three songs that are very strong. “A Song To No-One” features cleans, but they’re much stronger than the ones heard on The Golden Age; they’re more similar to the The Kids We Used To Be-era cleans. The last minute of “A Song To No-One” would surely get a crowd moving, especially when vocalist Ed McRae spits out a “BLEGH”.
Up next is my personal favourite, which is titled “Nearly Home”. The riffs on this track are excellent, as is the drumming, and the vocals are particularly strong. Just like on the previous track, Ed utilizes the “BLEGH”, however, this time it’s even stronger and cues a massive breakdown. The final track is titled “Just Like The End”. Instrumentally, this song is solid, but the cleanly sung chants are mediocre and one of the only weak parts on the nearly 12-minute-long Cold Chillin’. “Just Like The End” starts off fairly weak, but it picks up as it goes along. It’s a decent closer, but with that being said, I was hoping for a bit more from the final track.
Your Demise isn’t bringing anything new to the table with Cold Chillin’, but it’s probably the closest that they could come to recreating the sound heard on their most successful release, The Kids We Used To Be. There’s only a few things that I wish would be different (no clean chants and a few more songs), but to many fans, Cold Chillin’ will put Your Demise back on the right track after the release of The Golden Age.
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