By: Martyn Coppack
Sterling Roswell | facebook | twitter | bandcamp |
Released on October 24, 2014 via Fire Records
The last thing you expect from an ex-member of Spacemen 3, particularly the drummer responsible for the motorik groove found throughout their work, is an album of almost Flaming Lips pastiche but that is exactly what Sterling Roswell delivers. It’s a slow burning, semi ambient oddball of an album that is at times difficult to work out where the sense of need to write the songs came from.
The Call Of The Cosmos can be split into two parts. You have the pop infused songs which glide by in a wave of joy such as opening ‘Give Peace Another Chance’ which may as well be a John Lennon song for all its charm. Then you have the strictly for musos experimentation of songs such as ‘Time Is Of The Essence’ and numerous others if truth be told where nothing really happens apart from a few nice noises here and there. Like some of the quite moments from Yoshimi but with less heart.
When it really works is the moment the two disparate sides clash such as on the wonderful ‘The Girl From Orbit In Dub’ which is a dreamy classic infused with delightful melodies and far out space noises. It’s simply beautiful and shows a great sense of fusing pop with psych. It’s a moment that transcends the album and it’s a shame that there aren’t more moments like this.
To counter this, ‘Tripmaker’ is the odd song out here as it upsets the calm flow of the album to channel some of that energy from Sterling’s previous band. A garage rock stomper, it serves as a reminder that we have a musician who is not afraid to mix things up and, just maybe, this might be where Roswell places himself in the future. An artist of experimentation but mindful of some of the more over indulgent aspects of his work. Patchy but beautiful all the same.
