GOOD COMPANY

BRACE YOURSELVES - COLD YEARS HAVE CREATED THEIR VERY OWN, OUTSTANDING PUNK ROCK OPERA. SAY HELLO TO ONE OF THE ALBUMS OF 2022.

- MADDY HOWELL

Open the punk rock handbook and somewhere not too far away from page one, you'll read the words, 'Don't forget your roots'.

Integrity sits at the heart of the scene, but what if you outgrow your roots? You can respect where you came from without being anchored there for eternity, and sometimes digging them up, and replanting elsewhere can allow for the growth you need.

Feeling tethered to the monotony of Scotland's north-east coast, when Cold Years' Ross Gordon wrote his band's 2020 debut album, 'Paradise', he was stuck. A record rooted in apathy but brimming with defiance, it sparked the realisation that there had to be something more out there.

"Emotionally I felt trapped. It's not that Aberdeen was a bad place, it just wasn't my place any more," the frontman starts. "I held a lot of negativity towards my hometown during the period of writing that record because I wasn't comfortable there.

There were a lot of people and places that were doing damage to me personally." Released during the pandemic, touring plans for the band's debut were slashed as they parted ways with drummer Fraser Allan under the strain of COVID-19. Searching for the reset button they needed, Ross split his time between Aberdeen and Glasgow as the world swirled through its all-too-familiar chaos.