My Head Flew Off
RobotMonster | Middle You Ess | 12/23/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I would have given it 4 stars really, but I wanted to write this review mainly to offset the stupid one-star rating that the clueless Big-Donger wrote, which is apparently about some completely unrelated album. I rarely give 5 stars. Has to be a classic that has stood the test of time. Velvets third album gets 5. Here Come the Warm Jets by Eno gets 5. Madcap Laughs by Barrett gets 5. I can't give 5 to a band as new as Comets on Fire, but damned if I don't think they deserve it and these albums will join the pantheon of 5 star rock and effing roll classics.
This album rocks so hard it's hallucinogenic. Field Recordings and Blue Cathedral are also essential. One of only 2-3 new bands I've heard in the last couple of years that are worth keeping up with. I bet their live shows kill. Thank you, boys, for the avalanche waves of blitzkrieg grooves."
This is a review for the album 'Comets on Fire' by the band.
John Smith | Houston, TX USA | 08/07/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"There really aren't any frills here. This has got to be one of the hardest rocking albums since "Kick out the Jams." There's not one member of the band that doesn't metaphorically rip their respective instruments a new one. The drums are Keith-Moon-crazy, the guitar is like a screaming hack-saw, the bass will bring your walls down and the vocals...well...you haven't heard intense until you've heard singer Ethan Miller wail through echoplex (a neat little ancient effect worth a wiki search if you've got the time). The album obviously owes a lot to the acid-tinged 60's, but the sheer ferocity at work here is unlike anything that ever came out of that comparatively tame era.
My only real complaint is that the album is really a one trick pony. I mean yes, there are traces of a couple different musical forms here and there, but for the most part the band seems willfully content with pummeling your eardrums from start to finish. It really begins to grind by the time you've been through a few songs. It's not necessarily a big complaint considering there are no traces that this is an album constructed to be taken in as a cohesive whole (meaning listening to a song here and a song there isn't really detrimental to what is offered in the album), but the diversity in dynamics that the band begins to exhibit later in their career is completely absent here.
Still, it's a great album to turn on when you've got that primal rock-n-roll urge brewing in your chest. Just turn the volume up high and get ready for your ears to bleed."
Dressing up dumbing down
IRate | 04/10/2009
(2 out of 5 stars)
"2 1/2
Noisy, intense rock can be a wild ride when tuned perfectly but often sounds like much sound and fury signifying very little. Exploiting a quintessential indie-punk rule more effectively than many similar units, COF disguise some shortcomings that arise on the songwriting front with engaging sound-washes of distort, but even that creative aggression ends up feeling like gimmicky filler by the time the disc is done."
Track Listings (10) - Disc #1