Sometimes you just need a break, a rock to clamber onto in the middle of a raging river, and that’s exactly what The Flatliners have provided in the form of ‘Cold World’. By their standards, the Canadians’ seventh outing is a very calm record, but it’s what we’re craving from a band who’ve ridden the tides of punk for two decades without a lineup change or compromising their values. They’ve moved on from processing the generational trauma which dominated 2022’s ‘New Ruin’ and emerged from the other side with a zen detachment from the turmoil of 2026, and what we’ve got is an album that feels like your first cold shower after you get back from a festival.
That’s not to say that The Flatliners have gone soft at all. Lead single ‘Good, You?’ takes a side-swipe at enforced male stoicism and the “ever-open wound” of never being able to reveal your vulnerability, but with a dream-like, uplifting roar that dares you to have the courage to open up. The ironically titled ‘Inner Peace’ tightly winds through chiming guitar and lyrical claustrophobia, and the harsh harmonies of ‘Pulpit’ spark rough riffs and chanted challenges to the status quo.
While they might be happy with the position they’ve adopted as being beyond the storm and stress of the world, The Flatliners have not completely detached themselves. Rather, this whole album blooms with “nowstalgia,” the joy of living each moment with the joy that we reserve for some imagined glorious past. Even a powerful shredder like ‘Burn’ that maximises the amount of guitar that The Flatliners can pour into a track feels like a pause for a deep, mindful, albeit it rage-filled breath before making your next move. It’s a compelling experience to listen to an album from a band who know exactly who they are and who they want to be.
‘Frozen World’ is an album that takes you on a trip around a single bubble in time. From the ferocious call to arms that sparks ‘Stolen Valour’ all the way to closer ‘United In Spite’, a tribute to sticking with your in-group of haters through it all, we’re being dragged on a guided tour through the moment in which The Flatliners are currently living. The sense of being involved and sucked into their vision is so strong on ‘Whyte Light’, a song whose occasional quiet guitar drops only make the massive chorus that more prominent. We’re still in that mental and sonic space of waiting for the bombs to drop as they sweep us forward to ‘Into Annihilation’, but there’s never a menace or worry. The Flatliners are here with us to hold our tattooed hands through all the chaos we observe around us.
We love to discuss a band’s growth over time and track their progress on some imaginary musical chart, but to hear a band taking an album of pause for themselves is supremely refreshing. The Flatliners are living in the now and we love that for them. If you turn up ‘And They’re Off’ and close your eyes, you’re practically on an inflatable drifting on the ocean (while, admittedly, a war rages on the beach), and that’s an incredibly admirable quality. They’re not reactionary or screaming about the wrongs and the rights of society, they’re taking a step back and inviting us to do the same. ‘Cold World’ is a welcome and scenic plateau in their sound for us to experience at our leisure, and a delight to absorb yourself into from start to finish.
KATE ALLVEY