Squid announceS new album ‘cowards’
Squid’s new album Cowards is about evil. Nine stories whose protagonists reckon with cults, charisma and apathy. Real and imagined characters wading into the dark ocean between right and wrong. Singer and drummer Ollie Judge explains that he used to notice “real life things that I saw on the street. People I knew and people that I’d met” but somewhere between their last album and today, this lived social commentary gave way to an imagined world that felt more real. An avid reader, Judge was drawn more and more to the cult fiction section of book shops, falling into “bleak books about horrid murderers” such as Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh, or In The Miso Soup by Ryū Murakami. The smokescreen of digital narcissism is present here, as Judge adds “a lot of the album deals with the idea of sleepwalking into a world of complacency”.
Cowards is Squid’s most courageous album: simultaneously growing in scope and returning to basics. Guitarist Louis Borlase states “we were thinking of an album of great songwriting. Simple ideas that resonate in a very different way to O Monolith, which was dense and complex.” Whilst their previous two records have dealt with quintessentially British themes lyrically and sonically, Cowards sees the band looking outward. Something Judge credits to touring: “it’s all fed into this record in a way that I didn't initially realise. Every song has a specific place anchored to it, places that all five of us have visited together, like New York, Tokyo and Eastern Europe.” Judge also points out the similarity to the characters in Springsteen’s 1982 solo record Nebraska, an album that is “largely written about evil people but peppered with fleeting moments of redemption”.
Squid see Cowards as the album they wish they’d started with, but it takes a long time to forge the sort of musical relationship that makes a record like this possible. Bassist and cornetist Laurie Nankivell explains, “it’s fucking difficult, it takes many years to figure out a collective language you can share with five of us, and we have managed that musically, to feed off each other.” It’s a long process where every note is written and worked on together, in-person, giving their music a kinetic charge as musical conversations between each member coalesce. Hard work? “Yes”, he continues with a giddy excitement, but “we know it’s our best record yet.”
