I’d never heard of Comet Control before, although the bio that arrived with the album assured me that it is the second full length release by these Toronto based self described “space rock cosmonauts.” However, as soon as the first song from ‘Centre of the Maze’ came out of the speakers, their sound was pretty much instantly familiar. With a title like ‘Dig Out Your Head’, a cosmic band name, and the description of the blurb, a big slice of Hawkwind style space opera would be expected; sadly though, it was all too familiar to me for other reasons, being as I am as a person who spent his formative teenage years as a stroppy young metal head living in the very midst of the “Madchester” sound of the eighties. Vocals are ethereal and laconically delivered at the back of the mix of repetitive beats and effects laden guitars that go around on a near constant loop, a style that is clearly at the heart of their sound as it continues into ‘Darkness Moves’, albeit the keyboards are more prominent with a Hammond organ so beloved of the Inspiral Carpets back in the day. Whilst the shots of the band are suitably psychedelic, having heard the music before checking out the promo photos had me imagining a combination of tie-died baggy hoodies, massive jeans, and bowl head hair cuts.
‘Silver Spade’ opens with a swirling effect that needs to be accompanied with an oil lamp show for full impact, before the song wanders into the territory of jangly guitars and half mumbled lyrics; the sound was so familiar, yet slightly jarring, as if Comet Control were trying to recreate the sound of ‘Sergeant Pepper’, but rather than listening to The Beatles had tried to deduce the original ingredients by listening to Oasis. As the angry young mullet toting zit machine I had been in the eighties, this would have had me raging and screaming whilst reaching for my Dio and Saxon tapes (tapes were a general thing then, not a sign of the kvlt hipster okay folks!); now with half a century being my next landmark birthday I’m more mellow, and just let the album wash past me, its biggest effect on me being to raise a smirk as I think of what a shallow intolerant sod I was back in the day. Each track drifted past, ‘The Hive’ and ‘Criminal Mystic’ wandered across my consciousness with little impression, with ‘Golden Rule’ then playing out like a track from the next movie in the Austin Powers franchise. What clawed back some points for the album were the last two tracks, ‘Sick In Space’ and ‘Artificial Light’; each was far longer than the single friendly lengths of those that preceded them, allowing the band to explore and develop more. ‘Sick In Space’ had more than a hint of Syd Barrett to the sound, whilst the Pink Floyd influences continued with ‘Artificial Light’, a track that had the bigger layered sound of the later era of that band, and was quite frankly superior to anything that came out on the yawnfest that was ‘The Endless River’.
Ultimately, there’s nothing horribly wrong with ‘Centre of the Maze’, nothing to have me hitting the skip or fast forward buttons on the player, and nothing that would have me walking out of a bar or gig if they were playing. Equally though, there’s really nothing in the album to make me want to instantly hit the replay button either. Sadly, it fails to be early Rolling Stones, and ends up being more early Stone Roses.
(6/10 Spenny)
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