Much like the hyper-realised and vividly coloured album cover from the new record, the sounds on Cool Sounds’ fifth full-length Like That glow with a new-found vibrancy from start to finish. That’s not to diminish any of their previous music - while Dainis Lacey’s sticky vocals and oddball charisma has gleamed through each of their past releases, which have ventured from folk, to indie-pop, to alt-country and Americana and back again, Like That finds him and his revolving crew of friends/bandmates treating listeners to the project’s most adventurous and satisfying release yet.

Injected with a shot of disco-glam adrenaline, everything on Like That feels a little larger than life. Opening tracks ‘6 or 7 More’ and ‘Hello, Alright, You Got That?’ introduce the album with a tangle of funk basslines, glimmering keyboard and guitar combos and swells of exuberant percussion, and when the groove is intensified on tracks like ‘AB’ and ‘Built To Last’ the result is completely contagious. As always, Dainis’ craft with melody sits at the centre of these songs, and across the ten tracks on Like That he’s served up some of his finest work - ‘Built To Last’ is effortlessly hooky, the chorus is ‘Foreign Feelings’ is one of Cool Sounds’ best yet, and even the album’s mildest moment, the title track, feels like it’s ready to overflow with earworms.


Long time fans of the band might not have expected it, but a disco-funk detour has turned out to be exactly what we needed from Cool Sounds. To help us get to know the new record a little better, Dainis has kindly walked us through each track on Like That.

6 or 7 More

This was the first song I wrote for the album. I was in a mid-lockdown health kick mode, running lots, eating well, sleeping a bunch. I spent an hour or two each day working on songs and after a month I had more or less demo'd the album. I guess this track is about repetition, routine and ageing. It features a great performance on the mic by Ambrin Hasnain. 

Hello, Alright, You Got That?

I wrote the album while staying at my old family home. Maybe it was the combination of being in a place with so many memories attached to it, but without the people that were vital to those memories, that made me search for ways to bring the past into focus. I searched for comfort, walking old familiar neighbourhoods, recreating childhood dinners, and rediscovering albums. My dad was a fan of that brief period in the early 80s where British punks, unlike their US counterparts, embraced disco. His uni football team ran on to Ian Dury’s ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll’. I found the parallel in my own timeline, 2010ish indie dance, which holds an equal amount of nostalgia but still stings with the aftertaste of being able to remember too many details from ‘indie club nights’. I think ‘Hello, Alright…’ borrows from both of these. The chorus reinforces a theme that plays throughout the record of accepting life’s difficulties, a plain spoken way of saying that love isn’t always a cure for feeling blue.  

Part Time Punk

I remember sending the demo version of the album around to friends and being worried that people wouldn't be into it. Luckily Dylan Young, who plays guitar in the live band and generally helps a lot with recording, was super enthusiastic. He had an idea of what the recordings could be - I was a little skeptical but then he unpacked some roto toms on the first day of recording (when we recorded this song) and it all made sense.

AB

I often include samples in Cool Sounds tracks. I look in old albums, field recordings or YouTube videos and manipulate them until they don't bear much resemblance to their former self. Usually they are just one off and add a bit of extra character to a song but sometimes they can be the starting point for a song, important to its sound and structure. This track features a bunch of samples; I think they kind of work and don't sound out of place, or at least I hope they don't.

Moving Around

This song is about family, and about ways relationships can change and history can recontextualise how we feel about people we may have little to nothing to do with but are still linked to. It's not about one thing in particular, but takes from the past, present, close and distant. 

Built To Last

A while back my friend and sometimes Cool Sounds guitarist, Jack Nichols, wrote a couple really dumb but awesome comedy rock albums called Birdsong and The Year of Trip under the name Gentlemane. They feature lyrics that are hilarious but subtle and dry enough that they can often fly over people's heads as rock cliches. Most of the catchy hooks though come courtesy of Zac Denton's bvs. I'm not sure if I was at all influenced by the work of Jack and Zac but I was definitely trying to make the backing vocals more of a prominent component of this track and the album as a whole. 

Magic Trick

This track is kind of the set up to the final track on the album. It's a fictional account of two people's near death experiences. One, a gym rat who is nearly crushed when benching 180 (I never actually researched whether benching 180 is a thing), and the other a family/business man who fails at a suicide attempt because he isn't good at tying knots; 'I was never good at knots, on the yacht I'd just freestyle'. Later in ‘Like That’ you find out they know each other and it's a whole other thing.  

Dance

This track was really fun to record, I hope that comes through. When I'm recording songs with Dylan, he is often the one trying to keep it restrained and tasteful and I'm often pushing it the other way, emphasising that there are no silly ideas and egging on everything brash and kitsch. I think this one errs a bit more in my direction. It's somewhat overflowing with musical nods to artists like Toto, Psychedelic Furs, and generally 2000s indie.

Foreign Feelings

I was missing playing shows and touring when I wrote this. I guess it's about the pretty strange relationship I have with those things. It's definitely fun and rewarding, especially when you are doing it with great friends, but it also involves probably more sacrifice than I'd like to admit. Between Cool Sounds, Partner Look and the odd other band, I'm away more than I'd ever imagined. It definitely takes a certain kind of weirdo to want to drive up and down the Hume, often playing largely to no-one, four or five times a year. Sometimes I wonder if my life would be any different if I didn't do it but I know I would miss it, and I'm so glad I met The Ocean Party weirdos who embraced that aspect more than anyone.

Like That

‘Like That’ was the last song I wrote for the album, which I think is why it sounds different. It kind of wraps up a sentiment that's carried through the album, of accepting life's difficulties. This track follows on from the narrative established in ‘Magic Trick’ but here you find the steroid dealing gym rat was unlikely friends with the business man. Now they're both coming to terms with their new lives, one in hospital and one in jail, wondering how their old friend is doing, unaware that they are in a somewhat similar situation.