This is another in my occasional series of “retro-reviews” of some pretty impressive Aussie psych-rock bands that might not be too well-known outside of The Land Of Plenty. The scene there seems amazing, and the Copperfeast Records stable is fortunate to have several of these chappies under their wing. Formed in 2013, Sydney-based trio Comacozer is an instrumental, heavy, psychedelic, space rock band, specialising in extended spacey jams incorporating all sorts of stuff – ranging from Black Sabbath, Sleep, Gong, Hawkwind, Ozric Tentacles – the list goes on but sounds intriguing, eh?
I believe they’ve now released around six albums, coming to my attention on the excellent recent Copperfeast compilation The Feast Volume 1 (highly recommended). For the purposes of this brief attention-raising exercise I’ve plumped for 2017’s re-released Kalos Eidos Skopeo, the name apparently being derived from the Greek roots of the word ‘kaleidoscope’ – kalos (‘beauty’), eidos (‘form’) and skopeo (‘to see’). So there you go, all human knowledge is here in Velvet Thunder!!
Rick Burke – guitars
Rich Elliott – bass
Andrew Panagopoulos – drums, percussion
The band’s name Comacozer means big fat joint in the stoner world, and the band think the word perfectly describes their various sounds and styles. It has also been suggested that the name fittingly rhymes with bulldozer, their signature heavy-psych jams being the musical equivalent of a cosmic earthmover….
Enough of the background and on with the show – we are presented here with four tracks, the titles all being lost on me and all of them exceeding 12 minutes, as you might expect. First up is Axis Mundi, with I’ve seen described wonderfully as an intro in which a 70’s TV robot has a complete meltdown! Fuzzed riffery builds gradually and predictably organically/slowly before transforming into a quite gentle, spacey, work-out. It has a lazy vibe in the way the bubbling bassline rumbles along, providing the platform for lots of wah-wah lead licks. All pretty laid back until a distinctly “Hawklords” chord-line kicks in, the drummer coming to life and getting stuck in. There’s nothing remotely boundary-pushing here, it’s Space Rock innit!
Nystagmus comes in with a hypnotically pastoral guitar line, dizzying in its cleanliness and simplicity. More dense rifferama later on, over a great slow, sludgy bassline. In the nicest possible way you could get this on the NHS as a cure for insomnia given a set of headphones! Pleasant but not exactly The Brave New World?
Hylonomus is for me the strongest track of the selection because it does bring a change of pace, energy and overall vibe half way through, turning into a very impressive fuzzy workout. It makes you realise that the rest of the album does need a degree of concentration in a drifting sort of way because of that lack of variety – a very common problem for trios – and especially instrumental trios – in whatever genre.
The final track Enuma Elish continues that greater degree of variety, introducing a sense of Eastern vibe and wider range of sound effects. As I mentioned earlier, there’s not too much variety or boundary-pushing goimg on here, each track being an extended psych work-out around a groove, winding and weaving around it until its time is up…..
Deep, intense, and definitely slow-burning, it’s not one for thr unconverted or faint-hearted If you do enjoy a decent slab of space rock, stoner rock or etc, they’re a band worth sampling – great to listen to over ‘phones with a glass or three, even better to absorb the real thing live!
