by Anna Solomon (@chateau.fiasco)
I’ve been an extreme metal fan for long enough that it tends be only the most abrasive bands that manage to catch my attention anymore. The most recent discovery to really shock me has been Brooklyn’s noise-sludge quintet Couch Slut. If a quick glance through their discography of all black-and-grey album covers with sneering, semi-ironic titles like My Life as a Woman and Take a Chance on Rock and Roll aren’t sufficient to show what they’re about, the toweringly heavy opener on their fourth full-length, You Could Do It Tonight, will certainly do the job. Over monstrous riffs, frontwoman Megan Osztrosits puts herself back into the perspective of a woman new to DIY touring, trying to help a woman who she saw being assaulted, wailing out unflinching lines like “she said ‘somebody raped me in my dumb car last week / who gives a fuck who they are!’”
It's a shocking moment placed deliberately early on, but not bad tone setting for a project that’s as much a series of short horror vignettes as a collection of metal and hardcore recordings. It can be wildly absurd, or at times terrifyingly real. “Laughing and Crying” relates the story of drummer Thomas Nobel being held at gunpoint during a home break-in over some of the ugliest and noisiest guitar textures on the record. “Wilkinson’s Sword” recounts Osztrosits’s history with self-harm, with a driving grungy instrumental that’s a bit more accessible than most of Couch Slut’s fare, for whatever that’s worth.
The project really shines when the songs sprawl out into prog rock though. The band is great at making arrangements that have space to build and wind around without losing nonstop aggression. Never has it been this clear that Couch Slut is a two-guitar band, with Amy Mills and new guitarist Dylan DiLella trading creative metal riffs and showing their distinct approaches to making a lot of noise. “The Donkey” and “The Weaversville Home for Boys” are the side A closer and proper closer respectively, and both are lengthier tunes built around narratives. They’re too absurd to be true, sounding like urban legends or gorier Scooby Doo stories, filled with jarring details that can admittedly feel a bit edgy in their tonal whiplash.
The noise only lets up briefly at the midpoint on “Presidential Welcome,” a brief interlude, where filmmaker/guest vocalist Joseph Bone does his best Tom Waits impression over light contemporary jazz. It’s too unsettling to offer much reprieve, but one would be wise to stay on edge anyway when the abrupt slamming entrance of “Energy Crystals for Healing” is just around the corner.
There’s a clarity to You Could Do It Tonight that sets it apart from much of Couch Slut’s earlier work. For one, as heavy as the mix is, there’s a ton of definition to it. While there’s undoubtedly charm to awful mixing on a hardcore record, the ideas here are well served to be heard in full force. The drums and bass are rattlingly deep, but the increased clarity applies mostly to the sound of frontwoman Megan Osztrosits’s voice. Not to say she isn’t aggressive, as her screams are as raw and brutal as ever, but for as many times as I’ve spun Couch Slut’s sophomore effort Contempt, I couldn’t tell you more than a few words I understood. On its follow up Take a Chance on Rock and Roll, and even more here on You Could Do It Tonight, the horrific scenes Osztrosits describes are quite clear for the most part. It could be a turn off for some listeners; I’ll reiterate that the writing occasionally feels too edgy for its own good, but as far as sheer impact, Couch Slut are hard to beat, and the surprising intelligibility of Osztrosits’s shrieking adds a lot.
In combining the more ambitious structures of their earlier work with the tighter production and more direct attack of their more recent output, You Could Do It Tonight feels like a culmination for Couch Slut. It’s certainly their best produced record, the pacing is excellent, and that’s not to mention that it simply goes insanely hard. Couch Slut unveil new horrors at every turn with some of the noisiest and nastiest music out there right now.