Unlike its predecessors, however, You Could Do It Tonight flies off the rails at nearly every turn. Compromising solidarity through its thirty-eight-minute runtime through a variety of vicious tricks, no two tracks retaining the same technique, Couch Slut dives into surreal storytelling dedicated to self-harm and suicide. Using a thick haze of noise, combined with skronky guitar work and dark bass and helmed by the manically captivating spoken stories and Osztrosits’ manic shrieks, You Could Do It Tonight is an otherworldly and absolutely menacing trip to drug-fueled insanity.
The two faces of You Could Do It Tonight, in spite of different stylistic decisions throughout, can be pictured as simmering and unhinged. “Couch Slut Lewis,” “Laughing and Crying,” and “Wilkinson’s Sword” plod carefully and deliberately with an Oxbow-esque lounging pace through a noisy backdrop with memorable guitar licks throughout erupting into dissonant squawks, while Osztrosits’ shrieks describe rape and self-harm with raw and unflinching detail. The heart on their sleeves were traded for weed on 4/20, so any compassion is left in a haze of shock and smoke. Explosions of noise envelope tracks like “Ode to Jimbo” and “Energy Crystals for Healing” in a wave somehow larger than the already mammoth riffs dominating, while devastating roars of guests Zach Ezrin of Imperial Triumphant and Doug Moore of Pyrrhon add a distinct edge to “Couch Slut Lewis” and “Downhill Racer.” Like any good noise rock, there is a constant curtain of sound draped across Couch Slut’s sound, weaponized to a vicious and unhinged degree.
While the album at large maintains that trademark insanity, there are three instances in particular that challenge the listener. “Presidential Welcome” is a grimy jazz interlude straight outta Vile Luxury, starkly decadent after the climactic and filthy predecessor. This predecessor, “The Donkey,” features Osztrosits’ spoken word with dissonant squawks and a tapestry of feedback, lyrics describing a particular nightmare in which a couple make a stop-motion horror film, and the guy nearly saws off his arm to get enough blood for their film – the antics are described with unnerving conversational casualness. Meanwhile, closer “The Weaversville Home for Boys” utilizes spoken word atop pulsing beats and warbling squeals, describing an urban legend of three boys massacring the entire population of their school and vanishing, as our drugged narrator stumbles upon them laughing at the sky. It’s all unnerving.
In its themes and mood, You Could Do it Tonight can summed up by the lyrics in “Downhill Racer:” “My walls build moisture, enough to drown. I watch the water where he went down. My leg’s infected from all these scratches.” Couch Slut has no clear motive aside from absolute grime and maximum discomfort. While horror and mutilation are common themes throughout metal- and noise rock-adjacent lyrics, there’s an obscene absurdity that collides with jarring normality through these stories: as if rape, self-harm, and murder were all just everyday facets of urban life. You can trust no one. Interpreting Couch Slut and You Could Do It Tonight is a complex feat – it’s not an easy album, hardly an enjoyable one. But it is an impressively uncomfortable drug-induced listen full of captivating storytelling through effective spoken word and a vocal performance from hell, stinging instrumentals, and oily grime – like all good noise rock steeped in misery and sarcasm.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 41 Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Brutal Panda Records
Websites: couchslut.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/couchslut | instagram.com/couch.slut
Releases Worldwide: April 19th, 2024
