Cold Beat (Noah)

I always feel like Grass Widow is one of San Francisco’s most under-appreciated rock bands. Sure, they tour the world and are signed to impressive labels, but they continue to release better and better albums (which is saying a lot), and they just never get the deafening fanfare I believe they wholeheartedly deserve. Here’s hoping that the trio’s recent foray in to solo projects helps propel them to even greater heights, like bras and bags of dope being tossed at them on stage heights.

Cold Beat, the solo jaunt of Grass Widow mainstay Hannah Lew, is reminiscent of Grass Widow – the grit and grime of surf-garage dialed in various ways to achieve something artier, something downright weirder – but it lacks the mellifluous harmonies the trio so effortlessly provided. This isn’t a bad thing. Mz. Lew trades in the harmonies for an almost classic riff on girl-garage, layering the grimy, staccato guitar punches and the lo-fi tip-tap of the drums with her impeccable strain of vocals. If Cold Beat is anything it’s a signal of what the in-limbo San Francisco garage scene is turning towards – the familiar unfamiliarized.

:Cold Beat – Worms: