★★★★★
Bigger, bolder second by brooding Canadian... "Neuroplasticity" is a term which relates to the brain's ability to evolve when faced with new behaviour, environments, stimuli or trauma. According to Al Spx, the 26-year-old Canadian singer and songwriter who broods, bristles and snarls behind the soubriquet Cold Specks, she chose it as the title of her second album to honour "a creative rewiring process. It implies an aesthetic change...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2014-09-04
★★★★★
What singer/songwriter Al Spx refers to as her "doom soul" is a sound that, had early gospel and blues styles come together in a contemporary setting, colliding freely and comfortably (with little spiritual chafing), might resemble the songs of Neuroplasticity. With settings that move from rock to desolate jazz, Spx treads similar territory to PJ Harvey, facing down the "doom" like a torch singer who sounds, sometimes chillingly, like she knows a bit too much to bear...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2014-09-04
★★★★★
Cold Specks' debut album could not have been better named. I Predict A Graceful Expulsion was indeed graceful - there was a calm, a stillness at the heart of the record, with vocalist Al Spx's wonderfully expressive voice providing a soul. There was a strange kind of tension to most of the songs, as if the titular expulsion was being pushed back underground. It was a record of mood and of atmosphere. Sadly, with the exception of lead single Holland, it didn't feature that many memorable songs...
- www.musicomh.com
2014-09-03
★★★★★
Tweet Grace Under Pressure Cold Specks titled their album after a scientific term for the mind's capacity to form new connections. Neuroplasticity allows us to learn. While this might sound too uplifting for an album marked by tension and conflict, it may be a good fit. After all, this knowledge of neurons is being utilized by the scientific community to treat disorders of the mind. Al Spx created her Cold Specks moniker in an effort to distinguish her creative work from her personal life...
- www.mxdwn.com
2014-08-31
★★★★★
Al Spx' traditional Somali family didn't support her doom-y soul-singing dreams when she left home, but others did. The 26-year-old singer's 2012 debut as Cold Specks won her award nominations and made a fan out of Joni Mitchell. Her follow-up simultaneously lets the listener into her world and bolsters her anonymity: Beyond the aliases and the haunting, gothic hymns, we're left with only impressions of who Spx is...
- www.rollingstone.com
2014-09-02
★★★★★
There's a sense of unease that runs thick through the majority of Cold Specks' second offering, the aptly named 'Neuroplasticity'. From the moment the freeform trumpets weave all over opener 'A Broken Memory' and reappear in the tail end of 'Old Knives', there is a sense of foreboding that proves hard to shift. This is most definitely a winter album...
- diymag.com
2014-08-29
★★★★★
Label:
Mute
Release Date:
25/08/2014
FOLLOW RUSSELL WARFIELD
FOLLOW COLD SPECKS
Cold Specks' first record was a remarkably mature and well-developed record, one of the best of the year. She disowned it almost immediately. Over a year ago I saw Al Spx - voice, guitars and songs of Cold Specks - perform a set where she hated playing the songs of her debut. When I saw her a few months ago, she's become more detached from them still...
- drownedinsound.com
2014-08-28
★★★★★
Cold Specks' first record was a remarkably mature and well-developed record, one of the best of the year. She disowned it almost immediately. Over a year ago I saw Al Spx - voice, guitars and songs of Cold Specks - perform a set where she hated playing the songs of her debut. When I saw her a few months ago, she's become more detached from them still. From almost immediately after releasing her debut, Spx was more than ready to release ...
- www.drownedinsound.com
2014-08-27
★★★★★
Al Spx, aka Cold Specks, doesn't sing her music so much as she stalks it. Although a native Canadian, her voice is imbued with the visceral tone and plaintive testimony reminiscent of gospel in the American South. But the tribulations sung in the church are meant to be resolved through tension and release. Spx seemingly can't -- or maybe doesn't want to -- escape from the tension. The ultimate effect is more gothic than gospel...
- www.wonderingsound.com
2014-08-26
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