Comets On Fire
Blue Cathedral
Release Date: Jul 27, 2004
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Sub Pop
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Album Review: Blue Cathedral by Comets On Fire
Excellent, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Blue Cathedral, the third outing from Santa Cruz's Comets On Fire, is the culmination of five years of sonically overdriven rock & roll research. Here, the original quartet -- Ethan Miller, guitar and vocals; Noel Harmonson, echoplex and analog keyboards; Ben Flashman, bass; Utrillo Kushner, drums -- is augmented by new member and second guitarist Ben Chasny (aka Six Organs of Admittance) and the intermittent saxophone playing of guest Tim Daly (at whose studio this album was recorded). Chasny guested on the sprawling psychedelic freakout that was 2001's Field Recordings from the Sun.
Opinion: Excellent
Hairy terrors shooting straight from the monolithic ages of rock, Comets on Fire have returned to lay waste to whatever wasn’t completely incinerated by their last album, Field Recordings From the Sun. With six-string psychonaut Ben Chasny permanently in tow, Comets are poised to enact even wider devastation with Blue Cathedral, thanks to the bold signing by Sub Pop. Blue Cathedral makes its crushing declarations early – opener “The Bee and the Cracking Egg” is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the skull, with its gritty riffing and echoplex-ed vocals sounding like the MC5 recast as interstellar mercenaries.
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