The COW — Chy Dosyt? (2020)

This weekend the debut mini-album of the Kyiv's citizens The CoW was released, captivating with its psychedelic atmosphere. 

Two years ago some Ukrainian online music magazine published an article with provocative title "Why Ukrainian Artists Don't Have Any Charisma?", which addressed the absence of eccentricities in the musical process of our country, in contrast to, according to the author, charismatic American and European stars. Of course, there was a lot of negative reaction to this article. To some people it even looked like it was written for the sake of attention to the magazine itself. Nevertheless, the question is really interesting - why are Ukrainian musicians usually afraid to look stupid or even completely crazy on stage? Well, western underground music isn't always about nonsense or outrage either. On one hand you have Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, British prog-rock with their costume shows, Mike Patton, or David Bowie, on the other you have John Lennon, who even despised Mick Jagger for waggling his hips onstage. But why wouldn`t Ukrainian rock music have a niche of wild music at least? You can name some exclusions – for example, unique shows of Хамерман Знищує Віруси (Hammerman Destroys Viruses) or the legend of the stoner scene named BOMG with their shamanic frontman, even some examples of early Ukrainian rock music as early days of ВВ (VV). And yet, the Ukrainian musician is more often presented to us as polite modest guys as Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, or some cunning down-to-earth businessman like Kuzma Scryabin. Why is there such a calm and gentle rock scene in a country where so many wild things happen all the time?

Well, I can't give you the answer to that right now, but I sure can present you a band with their own brand of madness named The COW. The band took this name in 2018, but they also performed music before, while calling themselves The Curse of Wendigo. At that moment, they had no apparent signs of what would come after. Nevertheless, the guys assembled 2011 and came up with quality, relatively conservative stoner rock with a psychedelic themes and American flavor for 5 good years. They had nice riffs, an atmosphere wich was partly reminiscent of Kyuss, and sometimes due to oriental motifs – of Al Cisneros` OM or Ukrainian band Ethereal Riffian, They also had harmonica as a special feature, which was once used by Kyiv stoner rockers Snakerider, but didn`t manage to fully implement this wonderful feature. Also we could detect two lead vocalists, one of whom sang in a slightly more conventional voice for the genre than the other. Before changing their name to The COW, The Curse of Wendigo have recorded two albums, thus adding to the catalogue of solid Ukrainian stoner rock releases.

Having rebranded, The COW changed their language from English to Ukrainian, and started calling themselves nothing else than "Cow". They suggest quite unusual challenges to their subscribers, such as putting their foot into cow shit and taking a picture of it, for which the band promised to grant a Steam game key. They changed musically too. Their first video called "PLATO" was released on August 1, 2019 and introduced us to the psychedelic concept of the Cow, which lasted nearly a half of the video. Instead of apparent stoner rock we hear a piece of harsher and more aggressive, but still drugged out music. Maybe the guys just changed their dealer and started taking heavier stuff, I don`t know. One way or another, the first half of the song tries to smash listener's consciousness into pieces, and the second tends to calm and gather back. Nothing really is explained to us about that cow in the video, but it sure was an interesting one.

The second video, "HMURY", was released a month ago marked as "quarantine version". Only conceptual thing here is a cow costume, but you can fell the madness even in the ungenerous format of a quarantine video session via Zoom. Song`s content is surprisingly anti-drug, with the title being a reference to heroine. The first half is the same nervous post-stoner/metalcore, the second is no less crazy chunk of kraut rock, where the vocalist's screaming reaches its climax.

On August 1, the first mini-release of The COW called "CHY DOSYT`?" (Is it Enough?) was released. The first track, ironically titled OSTANNYI (The Last One) greets us with the same narcotic mixture of stoner and metalcore that we heard in the first half of "PLATO", but with a gloomier existential mood. The next track "NAGNO" on the contrary, feels as light-hearted as possible, being a two-minute keyboard surf-rock comic song laughing and cackling vocals. The third and the last track "PLATO", which we have already heard in their first video, completes this schizoid picture with its little psychedelic trip. These three tracks will definitely have a positive impression on those who like strange combinations of musical genres, weird song formats or drug-themed music. The sound is pretty decent, melodies are solid and you can feel the diversity of their influences even in such a short timing. 

Although it is difficult for me to answer that deep anthropological question about the charisma of Ukrainian bands, I can answer The COW's question in their title – "IS IT ENOUGH?". No, guys, three songs are not enough. Keep going and release more. You can reveal more about this mysterious cow and its psychedelic origins, even record a separate concept album about it, just keep doing what you do, since you`re doing great so far.

The opinions expressed in the blogs convey the views of the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect the position of Neformat.com.ua

The COW in social networks:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpCLH1AWVSd206_1oDEbBZg
https://www.facebook.com/Thecow42/
https://www.instagram.com/thecow42