Line-up: Matt Harrington – vocals, Scott O’Dowd – guitar, Alasdair Swan– guitar, Jay Furlo – bass, Kyle Rasmussen – drums
Boston loves an underdog, and as double-guitar heavy rock five-piece Cortez pass 15 years since the release of their 2007 debut EP, Thunder in a Forgotten Town, they remain persistently underrated.
Cortez are among the safest bets you can make in heavy rock and roll. Across three full-lengths to-date – 2020’s Sell the Future, 2017’s The Depths Below, 2012’s Cortez – the band has solidified a songwriting process and a straight-ahead, don’t-need-nuthin’-fancy-when-you-can-rock-like-this attitude that is second to none, in their home city or out of it.
Their latest LP, Thieves and Charlatans, demonstrates their ability to, without aping anybody – a bit of Black Sabbath worship in the swaggering “Stove Up” notwithstanding – command a sound that is both classic-rooted and modern in its construction. Working in continued collaboration with producer Benny Grotto at Mad Oak Studio, and with the returning lineup of vocalist Matt Harrington, guitarists Scott O’Dowd and Alasdair Swan, bassist Jay Furlo and drummer Alexei Rodriguez (although he has since been replaced by Kyle Rasmussen) – as well as guest vocal spots from Craig Riggs (Kind, Roadsaw, Sasquatch, etc.) and Jim Healey (We’re All Gonna Die, Black Thai, Blood Lightning, etc.) – Thieves and Charlatans sees them look forward as ever while regarding their past in a new way.
“The Song ‘Stove Up’ is a tribute of sorts to Tony D’Agostino (our former guitarist),” says the band. “The music dates back to the period after Thunder in a Forgotten Town, when that lineup was writing songs for what eventually became the self-titled. We had played the song live a handful of times with the Thunder lineup but scrapped it once Tony left the band. We decided to rework it and have Matt add some vocals as a callback to our beginnings as a band.”
While the sprawl and doom-chug largesse of the eight-minute “Levels” – finding new ones, are Cortez – aren’t to be understated, even the verses of the Non-LP track “Odds Are” seem to be a solo, and closer “Solace” builds to as consuming an emotional finish as Cortez have ever wrought, the band makes clear statements of who they are in “Leaders of Nobody” and “No Heroes” and still have a party in “Gimme Danger (On My Stereo)” without giving up either impact or movement of the songs that follow. It is an attention to detail that serves them well.
“We were a bit selfish while writing and recording this album,” says O’Dowd. “There’s probably one of our catchiest songs in ‘Gimme Danger (On My Stereo),’ and yet some of our longer, gloomier songs as well. There are also more complex guitar and vocal arrangements than in the past.”
“This album is an anomaly of sorts because these songs were written and recorded in a vacuum, during a pandemic,” reminds Harrington. “Cortez has never been shy about playing new songs before they are released, and this is the first time we didn’t have the filter of an audience. I feel like this is a more personal record as a result. We wrote these songs as friends in a room that no longer exists, holding onto something real in a prolonged period of extreme doubt, and we present them in the same way.”
With unmatched consistency of craft and performance, Cortez’s willful progression continues through Thieves and Charlatans, a record born boldly of tumult that speaks to past as much as future that’s just waiting for you to take it on.– JJ Koczan
