9. So Cow, s/t LP (‘Moon Guen Young’)

“I’ve just been one big stormcloud in a duffel coat…”

It doesn’t come to mind much now, but when I first heard So Cow (through the song ‘Commuting’) I thought of the classics of American pop-punk, the first couple of Green Day albums. But a stripped-down, self-recorded, alternately sharply ironic and painfully sincere version of such. Like my other Irish favourites Fight Like Apes, So Cow does indie in a way that is good and qualitatively different from what’s out there already. Okay, you can fit him in the “lo-fi” bracket to an extent, but no more than FLApes are a synth-pop band - as in, they are (and he is) but they have larger ambitions to do with that old punk rock tradition of making music fun, humourous and exciting, and having no sacred cows. So Cow isn’t an iconoclast, though, but rather he is skilled in homage.

This record is a compendium of two previous, self-released CDs, one of which I have (the second), and one which I don’t. I might put So Cow higher up my list if it was a true debut from my perspective, as I’m Siding With My Captors made it into last year’s list and has the lion’s share of my favourite So Cow songs. ‘Moon Guen Young’ is an earlier track, though, and over this year I’ve tended to go straight to the vinyl over the CD (and also to the mp3s via eMusic), becoming more familiar with the mix on this record. So Cow - greater than a greatest hits.

“…and you’re dancing with your headphones on again”