I remember when I first heard The Cosmic Dead around 2013
when Inner Sanctum was released and how I couldn’t believe that Scotland’s
finest had escaped my radar, blowing my mind with what they were doing. Fast
forward to 2014 when they headlined the Black Heart at Desertfest on a Saturday
night and it seemed like a life changing moment in music for me. I don’t know if
it was the sonics of what they did that night or just the festival atmosphere and
how the place had a complete psych out that night, but since then I have been
completely hooked.
Scottish Space Race had been in the making for a while with a
couple of new members and the magic touch of John McBain, whose history of
music and mastering speaks for itself.
Portal is big and bold and spends the first six minutes
bringing together psychedelic sounds, drones and deep space riffs from the four
corners of the galaxy, before the drums slip into a rhythm that makes the “mantra
chanting” sound doomy, dark and huge. A very unique sounding lap-steel scrapes
itself all over the beat of the song, pulling you deeper and deeper into the
chaos, then its freak-out time. Guitars, riffs, wah-wah, 100mph non-stop craziness
that doesn’t let up for several minutes. As Portal hurtles back towards Earth,
the drums and cymbals take control, but even after the first track, you are absolutely
flawed!
Ursa Major is the albums laid back trippy 17+ minute track
that floats in from an inter-cosmic space like domain. The bassline strings
everything along in an almost hypnotic repetition of itself and gives the space
for the drums to keep building in the background quietly whilst guitars give
you that space like vibe, the vibe though being a complex movement of a million
stars before the guitar walks off into a dimension of its own. Everything
begins to build and speed up and all the connections are made toa point where
the song takes off like a spaceship hurtling into the beyond on a mission that
only The Cosmic Dead are capable of. The space like vibe turns to a Hawkwindesq
crescendo and every member uses their instrument too go off into the unknown. Itsa
real driving psych affair that you cannot sit still to whilst listening. It’s
as though Colour Haze crashed into The Greatful Dead.
The next 12 minutes though have a completely different feel
to them as the band draw many fine punk and hardcore influences into what they’re
doing and pummel you with the Scottish Space Race. After a few minutes of big
heavy psych that turns into something like Hawkwind on speed impersonating Oi
Polloi. In unison, every instrument almost grinds along with chanting, singing
and lyrics that would make any Scotsman proud. I have found myself chanting the
line "can you dig it?" too myself over and over for the last two weeks.
The layers of this song are quite incredible. It’s loud, abrasive and possibly
not a song you would think The Cosmic Dead would write but it fits perfectly on
the album. As the song roars towards the last couple of minutes you can feel
the freak-out coming with more and more cosmic keyboards and this will be a
live one that literally pulls the venue down into itself.
The Grizzard finishes off the album with another 24 minute
epic. Big doomy riffs ala Sleep with lots of cymbals kick everything off and
continue along a mantra-like path of heaviness. It slowly feels like its
speeding up with more and more drums and cymbals eager to get in on the action,
before everything lets loose around the 4 minute mark. The noise is chaotic
with a keyboard riff that drops in and out that reminds me of the writing style
of 90’s Florida or Sweden Death Metal. If you know what I mean ala Morbid Angel
or Entombed, that keyboard makes sense. After this the song just goes off in a
direction that takes the guitar work to the beyond. Its fast, manic and a
journey through a trip that only The Cosmic Dead could have. This is the finale
of the Scottish space race that comes hurtling back towards Earth, probably
ending up somewhere in the River Clyde. At this point you think it’s over but
off we go again with more vocals, chanting like screams that blend deeply into
the psych of the song as the layers get bigger and thicker again before The
Grizzard doubles then triples in speed to an absolute manic rage, before
imploding on itself to a close.
Scottish Space Race is a little different to their previous
albums but this is by far their most “out there” cosmic trips into the beyond.
Between the band and the label Riot Season Records, the whole package, layout
and vinyl colours make this a raging piece of Scottish magic.
Website - Facebook - Bandcamp - Riot Season Records
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