Cough at Hardywood Park in Richmond

On Friday, I had the opportunity to catch Cough at their album release show at Hardywood Park Brewery in Richmond. It's been six years since they released a full album, and quite a few years since I last saw them live. I've been playing their latest, Still They Pray, pretty much non-stop, and I gave it a good review over on Metal Bandcamp.

I also got some video of one of my favorite songs on the album, "Haunter of the Dark." Hoping they'll tour and make it back down to Raleigh soon.

Buzzov*en, Cough and Lurch at the Casbah

(Buzzov*en)

This has been an unexpectedly busy week, so I'm just now getting around to posting about Wednesday's Buzzov*en, Cough, Lurch show at Casbah. K-Lloyd, Kirk Fisher's solo project, didn't play. No word on why he didn't. See more photos from the show.

Cough at Nightlight

Friday was another night where I had a difficult decision: Cough and Black Skies at Nighlight in Chapel Hill, or MAKE and In the Year of the Pig, at the exact same time, over at Troika in Durham. Since Cough are from Richmond, I opted to check them out, but thought I might stop by Durham first, and see what was happening there. The Sames were about to start over at Motorco (which, if you haven't checked it out yet, is a very nice, big club) when I realized I had left the battery to my camera back on the charger in Raleigh. I halfway considered just witnessing Cough without shooting photos, but at this point, it's really kind of weird for me to be at a show without my camera. It didn't take much for me to drive back home, get the charger and head out, thus missing Troika. 

Cough were definitely worth the effort, and lived up to their name. They have a sound that makes me think of all the good things about drinking too much cough syrup (slow, numbingly heavy) without the spins and intense vomiting that usually come afterward. Cough has an album called "Ritual Abuse" out now on Relapse.  See more photos.