Cold Comfort: Tainted Winds

If at first you don't succeed, scrap everything and form a band. That's what Dubliner and former solo artist Rob Walsh did, enlisting former Whipping Boy drummer (Colm Hassett) and bassist (Joey McGowan) along with guitarist Eoin Morrissey. Cold Comfort unabashedly take their cues from the same sort of bluesy swamp-rock as Irish bands The Riptide Movement and The Hot Sprockets, but Walsh's unusual vocal sets them apart on songs like Aces Falling and High. There is a theatricality to the title track and the rabble-rousing, dive bar rock'n'roll of Belong, while Ratrace Blues sounds like a countrified version of Motörhead. There is no question that the quartet are highly proficient and, with relatively short songs, self-aware enough to avoid the onset of tedium. coldcomfortmusic.bandcamp.com