More Info:
This is the Bay Area band's thrid album and first for Sub Pop; it's also their most varied and richly textured. On BLUE CATHEDRAL their trademark modern psychedelic sound is enriched by more structured, keyboard-driven jams, churning out Blue Oyster cult-ish chooglers and slow burners reminiscent of HARVEST-era Pink Floyd.
Reviews:
Wondering what to get Grandma for Halloween? Look no further. On Blue Cathedral, Comets on Fire's third release (bootlegs Live on WFMU and Bong Voyage don't count), the Santa Cruz quintet sprays a mighty load of psychedelic sludge from an exceedingly panoramic nozzle, gleefully messing up the entire space-time continuum in the process. The opening track, "The Bee and the Cracking Egg," commences with a careening riff lifted straight from Blue Cheer's collective unconscious, filtered through Roky Erickson's worst daymares, and bedizened with a writhing swarm of guitars malignant enough to make the Devil himself run sobbing to mommy. But it's Ethan Miller's tortured howl-distorted and magnified by Noel Harmonson's Echoplex (yep, there's a dude in the band who just plays effects)-that puts the "arm" in Comets' Armageddon, all the way up to the elbow. What's Miller saying? Who could possibly tell? There's so much electroplasmic goo on his vocals that he could sing the sports page and it'd come out like a CIA brainwashing experiment gone awry. Not all of Comets on Fire's songs are mean; the band spends much of Blue Cathedral shuttling blithely between Hell and Lothlorien-hardly surprising, given the presence of multi-instrumentalist Ben "Six Organs of Admittance" Chasny. Normally a mellow fellow, Chasny now has an outlet for his destructive urges, though occasionally he bathes the Comets in a gentle glow, as on the imaginatively titled, Hendrix-meets-Cinematic Orchestra nocturne, "Organ."
Wondering what to get Grandma for Halloween? Look no further. On Blue Cathedral, Comets on Fire's third release (bootlegs Live on WFMU and Bong Voyage don't count), the Santa Cruz quintet sprays a mighty load of psychedelic sludge from an exceedingly panoramic nozzle, gleefully messing up the entire space-time continuum in the process. The opening track, "The Bee and the Cracking Egg," commences with a careening riff lifted straight from Blue Cheer's collective unconscious, filtered through Roky Erickson's worst daymares, and bedizened with a writhing swarm of guitars malignant enough to make the Devil himself run sobbing to his mommy. But it's Ethan Miller's tortured howl-distorted and magnified by Noel Harmonson's Echoplex (yep, there's a dude in the band who just plays effects)-that puts the "arm" in Comets' Armageddon, all the way up to the elbow. What's Miller saying? Who could possibly tell? There's so much electroplasmic goo on his vocals that he could be singing the sports page and it'd come out like a CIA brainwashing experiment gone awry. Not all of High, er, Comets on Fire's songs are mean; the band spends much of Blue Cathedral shuttling blithely between Hell and Lothlorien-hardly surprising, given the presence of multi-instrumentalist Ben "Six Organs of Admittance" Chasney. Normally a mellow fellow, Chasney now has an outlet for his destructive urges, though occasionally he bathes High on Comets in a gentle glow, as on the imaginatively titled, Hendrix-meets-Cinematic Orchestra nocturne, "Organ."
