Comets On Fire
Blue Cathedral (CD)
 In case ya haven’t heard, the glory days of B.O.C. and Led Zep are long past. Oh sure, gadflys like Robert Plant have still been mucky-mucking it up with various solo albums. Don’t get me wrong now. I have the full collection of Zoso stuff, including the 4 CD box set of their CDs that is slowly collecting dust in the corner. And I may just haul it out for grins soon enough, just to to see if my ears aren’t deceiving me while listing to Comets on Fire’s “Blue Cathedral”. From the first 7 and a half minute bombastic track, “The Bee and The Cracking Egg”, I felt like belting out “hey, hey mama said the way you move gonna make you sweat gonna make you groove”. These guys have got a serious case of LedZep-itis. Especially lead singer Ethan Miller in his palpable aping of Mr. Plant.
While I don't fault them for going this route - the psych 70s revival has been selling for quite awhile - I wish they would have chosen to mix it up a bit. Maybe throw in some different sounds. The next track, "Pussy Foot The Duke" is a noticeable improvment at first with the use of piano in the song... well, I actually thought it was an improvement seeing as the delay heavy vocal hysteria is missing because it's an instrumental track. But the Comets soon squander needless jamming and soloing later in the song, and in the next one, "Whiskey River" they're back to their old tricks. Fiery and loud, sure enough, but just too much of it. One of the few bright spots was the tinkling piano and strangeness of the short instrumental "Organs". I can't find too much else to talk about the album. After that track I was pretty much bored out of my mind; it's just one solo after another. I have heard that these guys provide an incendiary live show though, so you might want to get introduced to them that way in order to mitigate the heavy classical rock taste this disc may leave in your mouth.
- review by SHORTY (11.1.04)
Sub Pop Records
2514 Fourth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98121
206-441-8441
info@subpop.com
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