The Cords - The Cords

Album review - vote 6.5

Some debuts sound like déjà vu: The Cords doesn’t feel like a 2025 record, but like a vinyl unearthed from a dusty box somewhere between Glasgow and Bristol, when indie thrived on a handful of chords and sheer urgency. Sisters Eva and Grace Tedeschi, from Greenock, have raced through the stages: a 7’’ that sold out in a flash, shows alongside The Vaselines, Camera Obscura, Belle and Sebastian and BMX Bandits, then the signing with Skep Wax and Slumberland. No calculation, just devotion.

The album lasts just over half an hour: 13 tracks, many under two minutes. The red thread ties the noisy wing of C86 (Shop Assistants) to the twee fringes of Sarah Records, passing through Talulah Gosh and The Pastels: melodies shot straight in your face, open and distorted chords, relentless tempos, amphetamines and punk. Fabulist sparks a jangle that hints at The Primitives; You, loud and melodic, looks across the ocean, combining Hüsker Dü, The Lemonheads and Juliana Hatfield with indolently pop verses. Weird Feeling is a pastoral pause before the sprint resumes (Done With You, with a Johnny Marr wink), while When You Said Goodbye closes with a young-adult ballad, natural and lightly inspired.

The Cords don’t aim for originality but for a TikTok-era speed applied to punk’s bluntness. This is young music, built to stay fresh, urgent and vital in a present that no longer fears the atomic bomb, but faces global threats just as — if not more — catastrophic.