Description
This was probably coming. The dam was surely always going to break. Had you listened to Ross Gordon speak over the past few years, read between the lines of his lyrics, or paid attention to the more seething moments of Cold Years' 2020 debut album Paradise, you could have predicted that something had to give. As the incendiary spirit of the band's new album Goodbye To Misery attests, 'something' might be an understatement. Everything has changed. This is the sound of the fight-or-flight kicking in, of deciding that enough is enough, and the trio – completed by guitarist Fin Urquhart and bassist Louis Craighead – demanding better. Most importantly, it's them doing something about it all. The time for pissing and moaning is done. As the singer and guitarist succinctly puts it, "I'm not self-destructive or miserable anymore." In the past, Ross never made any secret of his frustrations with feeling trapped in the suffocating environs of his native Aberdeen. It'll surprise no one to learn that he's recently moved south to Glasgow. A relocation that's as much about sanity and survival as it is an escape. "I'd never lived away from home before, but I needed to get away. My heart just wasn't in the place I was from anymore. I'd changed. I wanted to become a better person, and I think I did. For the first time in my life since I was a kid, I actually feel like I have a home now."
