Mia Thunderska
The opening titular song on the revocder EP by cowboyy quickly goes from chamber choirs into a free time jam into guitar pedal hell. The rest of the EP does not change tact from there. cowboyy makes the kind of music that only a new young band can, where the hunger is insatiable, and before the edges get sanded off. It is hard to avoid the comparisons, but so much of it does feel like the bastard child of Black Midi, Tera Melos and King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard. Technical music can so easily get very sanitised, especially with the recent endless accusations of edited performances and lacklustre live performances, but it’s hard to hear revocder as anything but the sound of 3 people in a room absolutely sending it.
The jam when second track bell pepper hell kicks off. Feeling like Devo with a double kick pedal, it’s not even two minutes long. It’s feral. The album doesn’t shy away from punk or blast beats, and is swimming in blasts of moshable chaos. First single ‘the chair mountain’ has a blast beat bridge, and compared to the hookiness of the rest of the song, it generates a similar feeling to the bridge of ‘Clouds’ by unpeople, despite how disparate the origins of the songs are. This could be the moment blast beats cross over into every genre. Despite the stop/start of many of the songs, the drumming of Dan Haysom really excels, and doesn’t ever feel like it is not serving the song.
Although it is not completely instrumental, vocals are less prominent than on previous EP epic the movie. It’s a confident move; it lets each element shine more, and it lets each song put its best foot forward. ‘chewing’ feels just as hooky as ‘the chair mountain’, with both songs having moments that could easily get stuck in your head for hours. That level of melody still doesn’t stop either song from descending into hell in the latter half, with ‘chewing’ giving way to angelic cluster chords. None of this feels disjointed.
revocder also peels back the carefully constructed noise to hit you with some riffs. ‘melancholy’ has moments of football chant like approval at a festival main stage potential, and the solo feels closer to Van Halen at their most pop than you’d expect any band to in 2026.
It would be easy to categorise this band into a list of disparate influences and generate intrigue with that and nothing else, but that would be a disservice. This is an album that flows together, not just a collection of tracks with each influence being ripped off clearly delineated. Whoever you could assume to be part of the pantheon of left field guitar band inspirations are referenced here, however unclear that collection is. It’s the kind of release that can only come with pouring youthful energy into learning how to push your instrument to weirdly techy places. This is a rare kind of release that feels to tread a perfect line while being lightning in a bottle.