Cold World: 15 (biased and subjective) thoughts

Pic from Town of Hardcore fanzine

In conjunction with the new LP being released on DWI, I thought I'd let my dozens of readers read up on some of my thoughts with them.  It's a cold world, so we keep 2 heaters. 

1. In 2005, Cold World played their "last show" at Posi Numbers fest. As a lifelong pro-wrestling fan, I should've seen through this (never never means never...get it?) but at the time it felt like a really huge deal.

2. Before The Rival Mob and Free Spirit got shit for their merch selling outlandish prices on Ebay, Cold World was that band. The Cold World BAPE shirt was a major topic of discussion and controversy on B9 and Livewire and other doofusy messageboards I was frequenting. 

3. I know of no other hardcore band who has had more shirt designs than Cold World. It's not an indictment or a criticism per se, I'm just saying. I'm sure there ARE others (Hardside has an embarrassing amount of shirts) but I don't know of them. 

3. Ice Grillz was, and still is, a perfect 7". I'd rank it as one of the best of the 00's era, and one I still dig out regularly. There's no filler, all the songs are catchy and memorable and the samples are tasteful (like a Spazz record. The samples always ruled). I'd never heard anything like it before. "Copernicus" is a GD banger.

4. I downloaded an MP3 of "Can it Be So Simple" from the Lockin Out website, right before Ice Grillz came out (the fall before high school graduation if I remember correctly) and listened to it over and over until my copy came in the mail (hadn't discovered Soulseek yet). 

5. Cold World was a unique band. Not just because of the hip-hop/hardcore thing, but just in the left-of-center approach they took to aesthetic and songwriting. Dan Mills' voice sounded different than any other vocalist I'd heard at the time, and they weren't afraid to experiment with "melodic" vocal patterns. 

6. As far as I'm concerned, Cold World put Wilkes-Barre on the map (for people outside of PA at least). I know there were hardcore bands from WB before them (Magnus is the one I'm most familiar with). It seems weird now, but there was a time when they were the only band (War Hungry soon after) that me, or any of my friends, knew about from there.

7. I saw them in 2006 at what would be one of the best shows of my life, in Richmond Virginia (Righteous Jams, Iron Boots, Justice, War Hungry and Fired Up...crazy when Fired Up is the weakest band on your bill). Here's a pic from the show, and me acting like a goofburger (my foot is the bottom right). I air-guitared at one point, and afterward, Alex Russin jokingly thanked me for "helping out." 

8. I found this funny story from a/The Cold World blog a few years back. It's about wanting to do a record on Revelation and doing a song for the comp. My favorite part is the line "Wilkes-Barre's burly wigger sons." 

9. I specifically remember a b9 thread that linked to a story about "snitching" culture (inspired by Dipset and all that), that referenced Cold World (because of their song on the Rev comp "Stop Snitchin") and called them a "hard core rock group." I wish I could find the link. 

9. The i-i-i-i-it's a demo that leaked is kind of like the Eddie Sutton Merauder demo in that tons of people claim to prefer it with Woj's vocals over Dan's. I dig it a lot and wish that all my mp3's were tagged correctly. 

10. They introduced a lot of people to Life of Agony, whether they meant to or not.

11.  Their song on Fucked Up Mix tape Vol. 2 is great. There really was a time when there was no bad Cold World song.

12. The Only Living Witness vocals on How the Gods Chill are pretty hard to get past and I'm not really into it as much as I thought I would be. That being said, it took me almost a solid year of Dedicated to Babies before it finally "clicked" (the production bugged me) but now I like it. 

13. I heard rumors that they covered Obituary live but could never get any confirmation as to the specific song/riff. Probably just a rumor. I believe I asked Woj about it in an interview, but I can't remember the response...which leads me to believe it didn't actually happen. 

14. I think it's dorky when hardcore bands do tons of "guest spots" on their albums, but I think it's actually kinda cool when Cold World does it. Also, for those who are bugged by it on their "new stuff" they've always done it. Greg from Mental did guest vox on Ice Grillz. 

15. In the mid 00's, trying to find any information on them was difficult. Some metal band from Scandinavia had the same name and their stuff would always come up in Google and Ebay searches.