Artist: Cosmo
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2006
Cosmo? A father-and-son partnership! Fran (the dad) and Antonio Cosmo (the son). How the hell can that even work? But apparently there are exceptions that prove the rule. Back in the eighties, Fran founded the band Orion The Hunter, together with Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau (a name that’ll twist your tongue into knots). Later Fran joined Boston and Orion The Hunter came to nothing. Still, on Boston’s latest studio album “Corporate America”, Antonio, Fran’s son, also played on the record. They obviously figured out there that they get along really well in the studio too, and that’s how the band Cosmo was born – when Cosmo meets Cosmo!
The name, the cover art, the singer’s reputation, all of it draws some potential parallels with Boston. What’s more, with prophetic hints that Frontiers Records would deliberately lean on the band to deliver an AOR album that sounds as much as possible like the infamous founders of melodic hard rock elements, AOR champs Boston (who, by the way, have sadly been kicking at thin air for decades), an AOR fan might have been drooling in anticipation! It didn’t come to that. The label left the hard-working musicians alone, and they made an album entirely to their own taste. It was recorded in less than a year.
The material is a mix of classic and modern influences. Forget Boston’s bombast, the cosmetic beauty of melodic hard rock that works on the ears like a real balm, in both the songwriting and the production itself. Starting to get the picture? Quick rundown: a dose of typical “mainstream” makeup, like special sound samples, a production-smudged “crunchy” guitar tone, riff-writing minimalism, and on top of that no massive sonic direction, which at times even prefers to flirt with pop rock.
The punchy ballad Don’t Tell Me Your Lies is the point where Cosmo most successfully combine the ingredients of classic melodic hard rock pomp with a modern “groove”, and you can even pick out a few harmonies that bring Boston to mind, so the track catches a whiff of AOR epicness. Right after it comes the explosive No Surprise. A flowing riff, atmospheric vocal harmonies, and you start to believe something big is brewing, but the next song, Gravity, has a completely identical chorus. And so at this point the album turns monotonous. Skip ahead to track number 7. Alien! Damn it! It hides yet another shamelessly similar chorus. Redemption is the only instrumental on the record, built from two clearly distinct motifs, but neither of them comes to life, a “filler” song that leaves behind next to nothing. Helicopter has hit potential and is the album’s second bright spot. It’s a neat pop rock number that Fran sings in the ideal key for fitting acoustic arrangements, which are pushed to the front of the overall sound in the production. Next up are two total “misses”, Woman and Creep, a proper R.E.M. massacre with excursions into alt – indie pop waters. Insane! Wedged between them, fortunately, is the tastier, though again modern “templated” hard rock track Can’t Run Away, where the album finally kicks up a bit of rock adrenaline. Songwriting-wise, it’s another more successful attempt at fusing the classic with the modern sound. Sadly, such attempts are a rare and endangered species!
This album is missing some “balls”! It’s empty! It lacks consistency, and the quality of the written material swings quite a bit over its 45 minutes. So bringing minimalism into the basic classic melodic hard rock forms leads you to wonder whether Cosmo even know what they want. It feels like the guys are searching for themselves. They want to please the young crowd, but something here is simply missing. A little piece of soul. Some songs, a minority, carry hit potential in their “earworminess” and catchiness, while others (most of them) quickly fade and slip right through the stomach, leaving it totally empty. First off, they’d need a producer who’s “tuned in” to the “mainstream”, but there’s no money for that, or else they should sober up and get back to hard rock built on classic, textbook AOR templates! I wouldn’t want to nudge the guys into trying to imitate Boston, but I think “Alien” would get off cheaper that way, through the ears of music critics.
Lineup
Fran Cosmo – vocals
Antonio Cosmo – guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, percussion, samples, backing vocals
Mick Brooks – guitar
Bill Carman – bass guitar
Pat Orlowski – drums
Production
Fran & Antonio Cosmo
Track list
1. Communication
2. Don’t Tell Me Your Lies
3. No Surprise
4. Gravity
5. Redemption
6. Helicopter
7. Alien
8. When I Close My Eyes
9. Woman
10. Can’t Run Away
11. Creep
12. Don’t Tell Me Your Lies (acoustic)
Album length: 45.38
