ALBUM REVIEW: Cosmic Reaper – Cosmic Reaper

All fuzzed up and nowhere to go. Paying homage to ELECTRIC WIZARD and SLEEP, with a heavy dose of BLACK SABBATH thrown in, COSMIC REAPER do a lot of things right on their debut, if not quite enough to separate them from the pack. Connoisseurs of the genre will know exactly what to expect when the first riff, heavy on reverb, kicks off Hellion, backed by the hard-hitting drumming of sludge veteran Jeremy Grobsmith. Thad Collis, handling guitar duties alongside Dillon Prentice, adopts the familiar faraway, ethereal vocal style which melds with the fuzz and distortion, while bassist Garrett Garlington provides a study base for everything to stand.

It’s hard to critique an album when so many of the building blocks are on show. There is nothing wrong with Cosmic Reaper. These four are a talented bunch and have cherry-picked the best of half a century of music to build their sound. That’s part of the problem. It’s so well executed, so clinical, that there’s no room for their own personality here.

There are standout moments. Stellar Death starts with a drum roll that sounds like it could kick-off some LIGHTNING BOLT style craziness, and the guitar work that runs through those six and a half minutes rumbles with a nice bluesy groove and closes out an impressive solo. This continues nicely into the instrumental Wasteland I, giving each member a chance to shine.

Yet tracks like Wasteland II and Heaven’s Gate see the band fall back on influences. They do it well but offer precious little that will be new to the listener. It also highlights another weakness. With tracks covering cults and widespread destruction, the lyrics are prone to cliché. No one should be expecting masterpieces of subtly and deeper meanings, but it reinforces the feeling of having heard all this before.

As for Planet Eater, which should be the band’s magnum opus at more than nine and a half minutes, they make a crucial mistake and show a rare misunderstanding of their genre. Doom, drone, psych; these all get away with repetitive riffing to build atmosphere, to get a room of people headbanging in a trancelike state. On a closer listen though, there are variations, differences in the riff structure that begin to tell a story through the instrumental.

For more than four minutes, the opening riff of Planet Eater repeats and instead of drawing you in, it makes the listener wonder if the song will ever get started. Like the endless revolving hallway games that followed P.T., it is an established idea without any of the necessary bite. And what a shame it is because, at the five-minute mark, it turns into the best showcase of this band’s ability. Swirling guitar lines, amped up distortion and interesting drumbeats make it a real highlight, but only for those willing to wade through the cut-and-paste riffing at the start.

Closer Infrasonic is a heavy slab that brings them back round to the status quo. More in their groove, they end the album on a moderate high, although the glory days of Stellar Death feel far away by this point.

With so much talent in COSMIC REAPER, it would be unfair, and impossible, to write them off. You have to hope that their next release has a little more of them in it, and a little less idol worship.

Rating: 6/10

Cosmic Reaper is out now via Heavy Psych Sounds.

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