Squid : Cowards
When the world you inhabit is uninspiring and aggravating, perhaps it’s best to simply imagine a new one. If contemporary politics gets you down, reframe it through the lens of 17th century witch trials. If the supermarket feels too drab, imagine everyone’s filling their carts with human meat—which is exactly the backdrop for the leadoff track on Squid‘s third album Cowards. Against a lush arc of motorik rhythms, Philip Glass-inspired melodic repetitions and an increasing sense of drama and grandiosity on “Crispy Skin,” vocalist Ollie Judge finds a cannibal caught in the middle of existential thought: “Am I the bad one? Yes I am/Thought it could change me/ Well, here I am.“
Inspired by Agustina Bazterrica’s dystopian “Tender is the Flesh,” the gorgeously haunting “Crispy Skin” is the most striking example of Squid’s unsettling, literary-inspired escapism—”something you could never imagine yourself doing, like being a murderer or living in space,” as Judge said in a recent interview. As the group’s vision creeps beyond the plane of reality, however, so expands their musical spectrum. An ostensible post-punk band when they made their full-length debut with 2021’s Bright Green Field, they’ve since rendered any such simplification obsolete, and from that taut rhythmic core on Cowards extends tendrils of hazy psychedelia, neoclassical elegance and climactic grandeur.
There’s precious little material on Cowards that scans as straightforward, each of its nine songs a journey in miniature into labyrinthine arrangements and darkly absurd corners of humanity. Even a song like “Building 650” is relatively simple only by the standards set by Squid themselves, its curl of opium-den guitar and incense-scented psychedelia harboring casually twisted revelations: “Frank’s my friend… There’s murder sometimes, but he’s a real nice guy.” And the deep bass and buzzing effects of “Cro-Magnon Man” stack on top of each other for a sexy and sinister banger in which Judge juxtaposes modern man’s absurdities and insufficiencies against those of our evolutionary predecessors (“Cro-magnon man lacks the wherewithal to influence the rest/But how many times do you dream of mist above the crest?”).
Squid haven’t entirely cut the tether that’s tied to more conventional rock sounds, but they continue to extend their leash, as several of the best songs on Cowards are also the ones that reach farther beyond the familiar. The two companion centerpieces, “Fieldworks I” and “Fieldworks II,” let go of any semblance of rock aggression and urgency, exploring instead a post-rock elegance not far from where These New Puritans ended up over a decade ago. The title track is the album’s most stunning transformation, a hushed, slightly abrasive yet gorgeous ballad of gentle guitar licks that ultimately erupts into a bright and vivid display of gleaming horns. And though “Showtime!” is one of only a few moments of actual post-punk here, it’s anything but rote, a jerking funk scrape in the vein of Gang of Four or The Pop Group touched up with a modern gloss, and kicking into higher gear in its final climax with a driving rhythm and piercing guitar squeal.
As they inhabit and speak through the voices of villains and caricatures—and yes, cowards—Squid take the opportunity to look beyond the familiar and the comfortable. Yet they do so with grace and grit alike, housing scoundrels in stained glass cathedrals with cracked facades and luminescent cobwebs. They’re not afraid to get their hands and two-inch tape a little dirty in creating something beautiful, and it’s never been more of a thrill to witness what curious architecture they create.
Label: Warp
Year: 2025
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Squid : Cowards
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