Comets On Fire And The Album Leaf review

Originally posted at Blogcritics.org.

One group steals Mudhoney’s effects pedals and another one puts them back.

I thought about using the William S. Burroughs cut and paste method with the press kit Sub Pop sent with the Comets On Fire release since the term “heavy metal” was used in one of the junkie bard’s books once – I forget which one since their paranoiac drug fantasies all tend to run together – but cutting and pasting might be more labor than I’m accustomed to undertake, besides this might be my last review ever for it appears my ears have permanently sealed themselves shut due to the strain of listening to an entire album by The Album Leaf.

This was to have been a simple assignment: just compare and contrast the heaviest Sub Pop artist, Comets On Fire who (and I quote verbatim from the press release) “dealt in pure bombast, attack, overwhelming distortion and chaos, and yet possessing a shameless love for anthemic choruses, shattering hooks and rifs, and the smoke and magic of yesteryear’s rock and roll iconoclasts”, with the lightest, The Album Leaf who appear to be the Icelandic antidote to No Doz. The dirty hippie rock of Comets On Fire came bellowing out of my stereo speakers with what I thought was a field recording of an African elephant charge and I will admit that what few atoms of gray matter I have left remembered back to those lost years of my twenties which I spent peddling broken shard feedback frenzied rawk and roll and I could truly appreciate the stroboscopic wall of density being heralded by this elephantine stampeding opener, “The Bee And The Cracking Egg”, and its pulsating punishment of sound. The rest of the disc, with the exception of the bizarro world jazz of “Pussy Foot The Duke”, invokes a reptilian heaviness as capable of smashing Japanes buildings as well as song structures. I thought hippies were raised on granola, lentils, and the platitudes of love and togetherness, but these guys must have been spoonfed Blue Cheer and side two of the Stooges “Funhouse” record for every breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Blue Cathedral is some boffo skronk, some of the best I’ve heard since the days when Sir Lord Baltimore used to prowl the earth with their amplifier eyes leaving razed monitors and smoldering cities in their touring wake.

I was actually looking forward to listening to in a safe place by The Album Leaf after such a visceral roof raising decibel assault to my senses. I knew the music would be tranquil so there was no surprise as the mellow soundscape began to unfurl like the flag of Iceland. The next track began and it was more of the same, but the textures were already wearing thin and getting blander by the second. I began to have doubts if I could even get through all ten cuts. The dull instrumentals made me imagine what the band Tortoise would sound like if all of their soul had been squished out. I’m sure I’m probably missing the point since The Album Leaf is all about the meditative Sunday afternoon state, but John Tesh is more rock and roll than this. Instead of producing enlightened abstract feelings on truth and beauty, I found myself getting into a peeved torpor as I strained harder to hear why so many people think this Musaked out music is so great, so hard in fact that my ears just gave up – they boarded up and left town before the hurricane of boredom took them over completely.

I hit the shuffle button in a panic hoping that the Comets On Fire could reach my ears with its glorious noise. Dimly I registered something, perhaps merely the memory of massive array of drums, guitars, and analog synthesizer drone, but even they could not restore my hearing. Growing despondent I was about to give up, when the press kit fell from the stereo console into my lap and it came to me with flash! This holy talisman of paper that the kind folks of Sub Pop included with the Comets On Fire album held the key – I bet they knew the effect The Album Leaf would have upon an unsuspecting reviewer – with the line about “yesteryear’s rock and roll” and I knew what would save me. I reached for the quintessential Sub Pop release and within a few notes my hearing was restored by the power of Superfuzz Bigmuff by Mudhoney.