Los Angeles band Cold Showers rock a very nice mix of post-punk darkness and jangly guitar brightness. There's a little of that goth-pop minimal thing going on here (which is often exactly the thing that you want, mind you) but there's also plenty of pretty melodies (aided by the mostly optimistic sounding guitars) to keep the darkness at bay and from fully clouding the contours of your soul. Singer Jonathan Weinberg has a nice haunting baritone that somehow sounds both relaxed and ominous, too. He's also the drummer in La Sera (Katy Goodman's band). The more you know, guys!

Cold Showers could appeal to lots of different music listeners. Put them somewhere on the "sounds like" spectrum with more recent bands like Cult of Youth and Iceage and Holograms and Wymond Miles.

And one can't forget Joy Division. No matter how hard you may try to avoid Joy Division in the band profile of a sad/happy post-punk band, you can't help it. There's nothing you can do because the ghost of Ian Curtis FINDS YOU. Spooky.

Anyway, you should go grab Cold Shower's recent 7" from Mexican Summer. And, of course, go see them play. You'll be inspired and deflated. No. Let's call that Deflated Inspiration. Yeah. That's it.



Cold Showers play The Empty Bottle with Veronica Falls and Love of Everything, on Thursday, March 14th.