Album Review: Stupid Cosmonaut/ Boobs of Doom split

D’ya know what? I only put this album on to have a quick listen, and here I am forty minutes later writing a review. So what happened there? Well I think I somehow became hypnotised by the mesmeric sound of the Stupid Cosmonaut track on this split album….two bands, two (virtual) sides, two tracks., and the Boobs of Doom contribution just sealed the deal.

Stupid Cosmonaut are doing some really interesting stuff at the moment (see my review of their last album Algol). They seem like a band who is free of any musical moorings and floating through sonic spaces. There is a great sense of experimentation with their track ‘Signals From A Dying Star’, but there is also an accessibility to it. Elements of techno, electronica (from ‘Oxygene’ Jarre onwards) and space rock combine in a way that is strangely compelling; yet amidst the geiger-like regularity there’s a tone of decay, a melancholy that becomes more perceptible as the track goes on. There’s change here but it’s incredibly incremental…but very effective. This track feels both old school and contemporary…great stuff!

Boobs of Doom are a new band for me. Their track ‘Vibrations From A Dying Soul’ acts as a brilliant counterpoint, even the titles work well together. Hailing from Scotland according to the duo’s biography they are:

“Sadsack MacDoom and Thumper; a weird morbid misanthropic musical duo from Glasgow, Scotland; obssesed with World of WarCraft, and endeavoring to “soundtrack the end of the world” using stoopid-computers, rusty guitars and an ageing wonky TB-303 called Muta.”

Their track is dark, heavy and relentless. Listening to it you sense little hope until around ten minutes in when there are glimmers with a guitar emerging through the primordial soup of beats and drones. This gives the sound nuance and depth, which is added to at every stage in often unexpected yet very effective ways. As the track progresses there is also an increased sense of desperation as the end draws near, there’s going to be no happy ending here…no gleaming spaceship coming to the rescue…not even a rusty one. So as the track draws to this inevitable denouement you get a sense of peaceful acceptable, a strangely beautiful melancholy tinged with a grime that somehow seems just right.

Together these two quite different tracks work really well together. There’s so much going on here that it’s going to take a few more listens for me to really get my head round it. But weirdly as soon as I started to listen to it I just had to start writing about it. I urge you to have a listen because this is beautiful, intelligent and thought-provoking music that is really a powerful statement by both bands.

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You can download this album (please pay some money for it) at either band’s bandcamp page, see links below:

Stupid Cosmonaut

Boobs of Doom.

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