Comets On Fire
Field Recordings From The Sun
(Ba Da Bing Records)
Dude! DUDE! DUUUUDE!
Sorry about that, I guess I was having a bit of a moment. I've been listening to Field Recordings From The Sun, and although I'm a fairly straight-laced fellow, all I can suddenly think about is chugging some Pabst Blue Ribbon, smashing the can on forehead, and hopping in my Trans Am and laying some rubber until I see cherries in my rearview mirror (nevermind the fact that I can't stand beer, am a major wimp, and actually drive an old Volvo rather than a TA).
Ahem. Well then, Comets On Fire is a project consisting of Tim Green (of the Fucking Champs) and a whole slew of other people. Field Recordings From The Sun is 5 tracks and just under 40 minutes of primordial sludge rock interspersed with quiet moments to help you remember to breath a bit. After opening with about three minutes of quiet chimes on "Beneath The Ice Age," it drops the axe and dare I say, "slays" for almost the entire rest of the disc. With about 4 different guitars and a bass and drums all run through filters and oscillators and effects, the track isn't something that has any modicum of subtlety, but that's not really what it's about. Sort of like what Mudhoney was doing way way back in the day, this is the definition of "rawk."
After 6 minutes of squealing and squalling, the track finally comes to a carwreck conclusion before riffing into the thick-ass "Return To Heaven." Again, you can't really understand any of the vocals, and the production on the track is definitely on the muddy side, but I have to admit there's something oddly charming about it all. It's like seeing a huge, feathery mullet and laughing at it, yet admitting to yourself that you wouldn't have the chutzpah to ever do something similar with your own hair. Heck, this album won't even let alone a pretty track like the picked acoustics of the middle track "Unicorn," instead swallowing it up midway and spitting it out the other side as nothing but grimy feedback.
The album doesn't really offer a whole lot of variety, as "ESP" drops another load of swirling 'electric fuzz destruction guitar' (their quote) in your face and "The Black Poodle" closes the disc out with moments of loud juxtaposed with passages of louder. At one point, I think a piano falls down some stairs somewhere, but I can't quite be sure of it. During a (comparitively) quieter middle section, some nice guitar chimes interplay back and forth and coil effects on top of one another, but they soon get levelled by the wall of sound again. As you can probably guess, this release is mainly for the hardcore. If you have a bit of metalhead dwelling back inside your body somewhere that longs for escape once in awhile, Comets On Fire is the perfect way to unleash it. It's definitely not pretty, but it can be fun once in awhile.
Rating: 6.75
