CNTS – featuring guitarist/producer Mike Crain (Dead Cross, Retox, Festival of Dead Deer), drummer Kevin Avery (Retox, Planet B), and vocalist Matt Cronk (Qui) – have scheduled the release of their new album, Thoughts & Prayers. After a remarkable recovery from a car accident that resulted in the potentially permanent loss of Cronk’s voice, they are now ready to drop the record on March 29 via Ipecac Recordings. In advance of this, the band have shared the video for “Smart Mouth.” Watch it below, and find out more.
Pre-order Thoughts and Prayers here.
“We got together and ran through a song and it sounded good. We kept playing and my voice held up, sounded cool, and we all felt good playing together. It was immediately clear that we could do it again, that we’d really missed playing together and we wanted to do it,” says Cronk. “Personally, the experience was a significant marker in my recovery. I got a little teary after that first song.”
Reinvigorated by Cronk’s recovery, CNTS spent the rest of the year hard at work on their new record, Thoughts & Prayers, the title inspired by the banality of our collective reaction to crises. With a great deal of inspiration from their recent challenges, CNTS channeled several years of frustration and hardship into the well-articulated and aggressive statement that became the 10-song collection. Such tracks include “Smart Mouth” and “Thoughts & Prayers,” which both chronicle Cronk’s pain and anger throughout his various injuries and subsequent recovery. “I Won’t Work For You” and “Eating You Alive” deal with the inequity inherent in modern life, while “For A Good Time (Don’t Call Her)” is a screed about the age-old theme of fighting with one’s romantic partner.
Crain adds: “I really wanted to have ‘songs’ on this record. Hooks. Choruses. Shit I listen to. In all times of confusion or indecision during the making of this album we’d stop and ask ourselves… What would AC/DC do?”
Equal parts catharsis and blood-letting, CNTS as a live entity is an unapologetic display of rage and sex, of belligerence and contempt, a warm gob of spit in the eye, all done with a sarcastic smile. The future belongs to CNTS.
CNTS play the Caterwaul Music Festival (Minneapolis) in May, with more shows to be announced soon.
Thought & Prayers tracklisting:
01 I Won’t Work For You
02 Thoughts & Prayers
03 Smart Mouth
04 Dear Sir
05 For A Good Time (Don’t Call Her)
06 Alone
07 Eating You Alive
08 Real Truth
09 Junkie
10 Drown
Follow CNTS:
https://cntsla.bandcamp.com/album/thoughts-prayers
https://www.instagram.com/cntsla/
https://www.tiktok.com/@cnts_la