All these things keep coming back to me

Cold Water Flat didn’t last long but they left a big impression. Almost everyone going to shows in town around 1994 or 1995 had them as the ‘Next Big Thing.’ It was hard to argue with the songs the bad was writing and the performances getting great reviews at every turn. They were even on an a new indie label created by Boston’s Fort Apache studios. By all accounts the trio were also incredibly nice guys (not something you always heard about a band starting to get a lot of positive press.) However, all the gears never turned at the right time for them. Their self-titled album (which was actually their second disc) was full of crunchy, hooky songs but it’s possible the band were too punk sounding for the grunge kids and too grungy for the pop kids. Songs like “Magnetic North Pole” and “Virus Road” were great slabs of furious guitars and machine-gun drums but after a burst of good national press things dwindled. It’s easy to pick decisions apart well after the fact but I always thought the slower, bluesy “Mistaken” would have made a great single and perhaps pulled in more listeners. I stand by that because the soft shuffle and strum approach the band took sure as hell sounds similar to the approach Oasis took for “Champagne Supernova” and that seemed to do OK. Oh well, in any case - it’s the song I come back to more than any other on the disc.

Interestingly enough the band called it quits a while ago but has a recently updated Myspace profile.

PLAY:

DOWNLOAD: Cold Water Flat - Mistaken