{"id":295739,"date":"2026-02-13T09:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295739\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T09:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:10:09","slug":"angel-dut-cold-2-the-touch-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295739\/","title":{"rendered":"Angel Du$t: COLD 2 THE TOUCH Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, Angel Du$t<\/a> was Justice Tripp\u2019s balmy reprieve from Trapped Under Ice. When he fronted the Baltimore hardcore band, he cursed out ice queens<\/a> and swore he\u2019d \u201cstay cold forevermore<\/a>\u201d to protect his heart. These tormented songs were molded by the trauma and violence that Tripp endured during his hardscrabble upbringing. Angel Du$t\u2019s 2014 debut, A.D., with its pink cover art and perky pop-punk sound, showed that he was learning to leave the past behind and warm up a bit. On subsequent Angel Du$t records, the music got even softer, the imagery cozier, and Tripp\u2019s lyrics, which once focused almost solely on heartbreak and regret, became intoxicated by the fumes of romance (\u201cDeep Love,\u201d \u201cBig Ass Love,\u201d \u201cLove Slam\u201d) and rock\u2019n\u2019roll (\u201cTwist N Shout,\u201d \u201cIn the Tape Deck\u201d).<\/p>\n

Alas, Tripp is once again feeling a true chill<\/a>. On Angel Du$t\u2019s sixth album, COLD 2 THE TOUCH, he revisits some of the darker subjects from his early work across a set of songs that are heavier, wearier, more pissed-off than 2023\u2019s Brand New Soul<\/a>. He begs for his \u201cfreezing\u201d body to be held tight (\u201cJesus Head\u201d), laments that his internal permafrost remains unmeltable (\u201cZero\u201d), and pays a visit to \u201cthe place where dreams go to die\u201d (\u201cThe Knife\u201d) to exact revenge upon\u2026 someone. Himself? Tripp\u2019s writing has become less brutally pointed as his music has become looser, settling into a form of vibey psych-rock that\u2019s nearly unrecognizable from Angel Du$t\u2019s Ramones<\/a>-via-Bad Brains<\/a> origins.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

COLD 2 THE TOUCH isn\u2019t a full return to the band\u2019s lovably spartan beginnings, but it is the best balance of no-frills punk and experimentation that Angel Du$t have ever delivered. Although a good portion of this album still sounds like Kurt Vile<\/a> going through a Sly Stone<\/a> phase, the kumbaya squishiness of the past few records has hardened into a brisk antagonism. On the title track, a spiky invective aimed at soulless bands, Tripp sounds more fired up than he has since TUI\u2019s last record in 2017. He\u2019s spent the past decade chiseling his emotive hardcore rasp into a sultry power-pop croon, but he lets the old Tripp snarl through on \u201cPain Is a Must\u201d and \u201cThe Beat,\u201d the two gnarliest Angel Du$t songs since 2016\u2019s Rock the Fuck on Forever<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Between those harder highlights and the rogue\u2019s gallery of guest vocalists\u2014members of Terror, American Nightmare<\/a>, God\u2019s Hate, and Restraining Order\u2014COLD 2 THE TOUCH is Angel Du$t\u2019s way of signaling their loyalty to hardcore proper. However, the album\u2019s best songs are the hybrids. \u201cZero\u201d fuses smokey Southern-rock riffing with chunky hardcore churn, while \u201cDU$T\u201d swings from acoustic balladry to throttling powerviolence and ends with Tripp teasing a mosh part that\u2014surprise!\u2014is actually a funk breakdown. The pseudo-gospel of \u201cMan on Fire\u201d is the one track that goes a little overboard, but the straightforward punk-pop bliss of \u201cNothing I Can\u2019t Kill\u201d provides a counterweight to Tripp\u2019s acid-blotted impulses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, Angel Du$t was Justice Tripp\u2019s balmy reprieve from Trapped Under Ice. When he fronted the Baltimore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[692,93,61,60,278,514],"class_list":["post-295739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-albums","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}