St. Louis’ very own Glued has been playing angular, dissonant prog-punk since the winter of 2015. At the core of their songs is a parade of rueful hours; an uncertain and acrid nostalgic overload led by interweaving guitar lines mutating and changing direction just as they settle in.

Cool Evil repeatedly finds ways to shift gears from dynamic, melodic verses to expansive tunnels of four-piece instrumental conversation, revealing a fascinating chemistry few bands will ever approach. Drummer Chelsi Webster shares vocal duties with guitarist Sean Ballard, the former taking the majority of the songs on Cool Evil. On the opening track, “Used To It”, Webster sets the emotional tone of the album, a resilient disgust battling an inescapable disillusionment: “Breathing well is a dying form of art / Getting well is a dying art / Sleeping well is a dire form of art / Living well is a dead and a dying art / And I should get used to it.” The immediacy of “Used To It” finds common ground in modern post-punk (Nots, Marbled Eye, Negative Scanner), where leggier songs “Beach Boys”, “Fish Song”, and penultimate track “Grounded By Pavement” recall hyper avant-punk (Deerhoof, Lithics, Polvo).

Recorded at Roseraft by Philip Lesicko (The Funs, Swear Beam) and mastered by Dave Vettraino, these sessions abandon the reverb of the group’s previous releases in favor of a drier, restrained, and more immediate sound. Their debut LP, Cool Evil is a captivating snapshot of a band fully realized, somehow, without losing the risk and curiosity of the first practice space demos. The band describes it as “30 minutes of pulsating mid tempo eighth notes to lobotomize your soft and supple brain, and perhaps help fill the void where a soul might reside.”