Cough share new track "Dead Among The Roses"

Richmond doom metal outfit Cough have released another song from their upcoming Jus Osborn-produced album Still They Pray. The new song, which follows “The Wounding Hours,” is called “Dead Among the Roses,” and you probably know what it sounds like before even listening to it. This is not a bad thing.

Continuing to operate in the well-worn, heavily Electric Wizard-influenced realm of crushingly psychedelic doom metal, somehow Cough manage to sound like more than the sum of their influences, which is no mean feat for a band that plays it this straight-ahead. But, as is the case with all good doom, emotional range across the stylistically limited music is paramount. So many doom bands just go for darkness, but the better bands, like Cough, understand that darkness without shading doesn’t stimulate the senses properly. Like “The Wounding Hours,” “Dead Among the Roses” will have you bobbing your head in no time, the groove evoking that counterintuitive joy that the best sludge can draw out of its oppressive crush. And as the track evolves over its 10-minute run time, it gets to a place of mournfulness that inches towards funeral doom contemporaries like Bell Witch, Lycus, or Thou, but without sacrificing an inch of its groove-based, psych-y edge.

Still They Pray drops on Relapse on June 3. Listen to “Dead Among the Roses” below.