Saturday 12 October 2019

The Comet Is Coming "The Afterlife" (2019)


I'm struck with a sense of disappointment as an exciting discovery, Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery, has been swiftly followed up in a matter of months by the London based Jazz Fusion trio. I was dead keen to get on this record, it kicks off with the familiar voice of featured collaborator Joshua Idehen who loaned his voice to Sons Of Kemet. He brings a hype with poetic cries of thought invoking rhymes but bellow him the murmuring base fuzz, spacious percussive grooves and Smooth Jazz saxophone fail to strike a nerve beyond the reasonable. From there the rest of these thirty minutes seem to fall into the same rut of mediocrity. Gone are the tantalizing grooves of obnoxious Metal and thumping EDM music, it recoils back to its roots, dissolving the spice that made this band so interesting and inviting. A dip in form may exacerbate my reaction but a closer analysis seems to further these feelings.

After its opening number, the next two tracks meander through the directionless wandering of low key playing on an ambient setting of bassy synths. Its great background music but little of the musics unraveling is captivating. The first half of Lifeforce has a similar sense of lurking in ambiguity, mustering some suspense for whats to come in the second half where temperate drum grooves and lively two note grooving intertwines with sparse melodies through the saxophone. Its just one song among sleepers. Its final piece reminds me of Vapourwave vibes in a good way, however it too is a sleepy track alluding to an atmosphere that just doesn't engage me. There is nothing bad here, the aesthetics are as gorgeous as before however the low key nature of the music itself turns the whole thing from a jam to a lull that didn't capture an ambient charm, which may have been their intention.

Rating: 4/10