Julian Cope’s Album of the Month

Comets On FireBlue Cathedral
AOTM #48, May 2004ce
Released 2004 on Sub Pop
- The Bee & the Crackin’ Egg (7.45)
- Pussy Footin’ the Duke (5.06)
- Whiskey River (7.57)
- Organs (1.41)
- The Antler of the Midnight Sun (4.05)
- Wild Whiskey (4.44)
- Brotherhood of the Harvest (3.03)
- Death Squad (8.33)
- Blue Tomb (10.05)
More of the Same Bile
Do anybody know the heavy rock freaks Comets on Fire? If stoners hear this music, shit damn sure you gonna dig the crunch it heaves to the back of your head. This is HEAVY! In favour of comments which warn the return of the awesome collage Comets on Fire’s BLUE CATHEDRAL, I prepared this tribute in great anticipation of their forth coming record.
Ever heard howling at the moon like the mongrel dogs of Comets of Fire? Yeah, it’s everyday for me too, rock fanatics, gorging myself on their errant aberrant muse. A solar wind blowed through the aching heart of their last studio colossus, but the newie grabs handfuls of the moon and snorts at the gusset of the menstruating Muse. This ain’t no garage band, grandma!

COMETS ON FIRE

FIELD RECORDINGS FROM THE SUN

BONG VOYAGE

LIVE ON W.F.M.U.
Unlike much current experimental nonsense, Comets ain’t bourgeois frit-to-have-a-tune ramalama, and is therefore thankfully much more appealing with the music of psychedelia and, for some, the maximum beginnings of experimental metal. For some perhaps, almost jazz in places but not for me. ‘Pussyfootin’ the Duke’ sure is Faust playing Zappa’s LUMP GRAVY, but what’s better than Zappa refracted through the bong? Too long we have awaited this newly recorded LP, and I have had to entrust my spirit to this sect’s endless string of live bootlegs (malignant and devilish). If there’s a problem for me it’s not enough of the Miller larynx – I NEEED that voice, that Ray Charles of the Underworld, that stratospheric SLADE ALIVE Neville Holder ‘Get Down Get With It’, that sweet assassination of the 13th Floor Elevators. For this mainly instrumental LP to always attract the attention, I have no doubt of its place in the modern world. For me, Ethan Miller and Ben Flashman and Noel Harmonson and Utrillo Belcher is an sect malignant. Allied sorcery and nourisher of dread. For many years of the future, this band of brothers will also be a brand hallucinating which occupied in mine head the larger place. Inclusive here being the magical synthesizer wars of drums and guitar, also piano and organ newly arrived to stew up the sound further. These magic battles of sound and vibration also occupy in my head the larger place. This is Comets on Fire. So rejoice with me lovers of the music. Here is great tipsy principal coming from the far west, thousands of miles of sea and landmass from where I reside. Perhaps it’s the great monoliths of the Avebury ring picking up the rage of Messrs. Miller, Harmonson, Flashman and Belcher. During World War 2, Arthur C. Clarke was stationed here at Yatesbury only one mile from where I write this down. If 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY was conceived in this environment, what better place for picking up the refuseniks stomp-a-thons of Comets on Fire? For me, this is a band Wonderful, is the highest, is anything, is an Sect which some follow for ever and ever.
Death Squad
Sirens and warning robot female voice say: ‘Alert… Ben Flashman, your bass is too loud.’ Flashman says get out the way. Stand aside it’s the fucking real U.S. army and there is four of us. A four man army always works if you got the right four. Ask Hernando Cortes, ask Moctezuma and kick Neil Young’s hippy ass (Comets on Fire are greedy and makes me chuckle coz they sure is sore losers and hate the hippy… that free man, that free). Four man army can destroy all in its path. Especially on the night raid and here is Special Agent Ben Chasny on the tippytoe sneaking into battle making acoustic love and delicate as the Japanese geisha girl. Beyond the rages of lead guitar and male-strummed bass mentality, we cannot expect their genius to incorporate organ and chords! But they do such things! Is this the same band? Yes and yes again… Of course, we must all wish with delight that BLUE CATHEDRAL will be a big ‘Hit’. So I say Explore it, pick up at least 1 copy. Get out again. Willingly heal this Knave New World of the urban killing fields. No more war! No more war! Get Comets on Fire peak experience rock! I’m thankful for your attention. No more stupid George W. Get back under the bottle says Comets on Fire. No blues only explosions. No more war. No more war. Get Comets on Fire peak experience rock! I’m thankful for your attention.