God Damn 'Raw Coward' LP

Last year Black Country mainstays God Damn were reborn with the release of their uncompromising self-titled third album, one that truly felt like they’d shed all preconceptions and were fully dedicated to a sound and delivery that they’d long denied themselves. Now, with a new lease on life, the band have penned their brutal and unapologetic new LP Raw Coward.

February 2020 saw God Damn disrupt the quiet before the storm with a blistering UK tour that shook the walls of some of the country’s favourite grassroots venues, showcasing their new material to hordes of sweaty bodies, but the incoming pandemic put a stop to the promo train and subsequently plunged them back into the shadows just when they were at their most amped. You can feel the pent-up aggression in every fibre of Raw Coward, from its opening riff to its final feedback educed fade-out, it brims with an abrasive heaviness that threatens to buckle under its own weight at any time. Ambitious and cynical, it lashes out in all directions, taking wild swings at nationalism, structural power abuse, the music industry and capitalist machine.

Having previously recorded with the legendary Sylvia Massy (Smashing Pumpkins, Deftones, Johnny Cash, Slayer), and taking on two new band members, Hannah Al Shemmeri on keys and Robert Graham (Working Men’s Club, Drenge, Wet Nuns) on additional guitars, God Damn were confident in their ability to put something strong down themselves. With their back-to-basics approach and unrelenting desire to let it all hang out, they used lockdown as a time to bash through 10 destructive anthems while putting an emphasis on home experimentation, completely free from the pressure of the studio or outside influence. In true DIY fashion Al Shemmeri was also on art and design duties, utilizing her creative skills to help visualise the disturbing world of God Damn and fine-tune its concepts.