HN FM Live In Studio: Death Cow

[The following introduction was read live on the air prior to Death Cow’s live performance on Hear Nebraska FM. Slow Drown, the band’s debut album, drops June 8, 2018. Hear the audio of their set and interview below.]

The first time I saw Death Cow, I thought they might leap from the stage and roundhouse kick me in the chest. It was a particularly full and particularly rowdy summer night last year at the local all-ages venue slash coffeeshop slash indoor skatepark and the feeling I caught was overwhelmingly final, like endless waves of grunge, flannel and grit whaling the Lincoln garage punk band’s presence into my brain.

If you run in Nebraska’s house show and DIY circles, there is a puncher’s chance you know something about Death Cow. Onstage, the young four-piece dispenses an all-out assault of gang-vocal choruses, white-hot guitar leads and furious rhythm. Developed over the course of nearly three years, after vocalist Connor Worden and drummer Sam Crisler first jammed in Crisler’s parents attic, that feeling has scored them spots on some the state’s musical who’s who events, from Benson First Friday Femme Fest to the Nebraska Hardcore Showcase.

Death Cow — comprising Worden, Crisler, bassist Mari Crisler and guitarist Reed Tiwald — takes another leap forward next month, when they’ll release new LP Slow Drown. Recorded in March with Jeremy Wurst (blét, Giant’s Arrow), this update to the band’s Dec 2016 demo captures the crushing vigor of their live performance while displaying musical range. One can trace the tonal DNA in “Mischievous Cat” back to mid-90’s grunge. “I’ll Stay” is a head-bopping sing-along and “Sacramento Jones” is an all-out screaming throwdown. Worden takes on subjects as deep as devotion and as simple as making your bedtime, all with bleeding-hearted expressiveness. Mari is brilliant and deadpan as his spell, bringing the same insightful cleverness as in her writing for the band she fronts, The Way Out. Slow Drown announces Death Cow as a worthy component of the scene’s budding young cohort.

Now, here’s the band with “Come Around.”