Comet is Coming


(Copyright © 2019 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of Use )
Channel the Spirits (2016), 7.5/10
Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery (2019), 6.5/10
Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam (2022), 6/10
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London-based trio The Comet Is Coming, formed by saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings (who played in Sun Ra's Arkestra), keyboardist Dan Leavers and drummer Max Hallett, debuted with the five-song EP Prophecy (2015) in a vein of rocking instrumental jazztronica. The driving Neon Baby sounds like a saxophone-led jazz version of Neu. The even more savage Star Exploding in Slow Motion blends surreal synth sounds, discreet sax sounds and African drums until the sax intones a Jimi Hendrix-ian solo. The frenzied dance single Do the Milky Way is a showcase for the saxophone's effervescent melodic improvisation but also for the eclectic percussion style. The mysterious atmosphere of Cosmic Serpent sounds like a romantic ballad crossed with Jon Hassell's fourth-world music.

Channel the Spirits (Leaf, 2016) contains the propulsive single Space Carnival, with astral drumming and a saxophone that keeps changing repetitive phrases, the exuberant rockabilly Cosmic Dust, where the dialogue between sax and synth remains atonal, the pounding and dizzying Star Furnace, driven by a massive bass synth line and with the saxophone melody fragmented and refracted until it becomes a theme for whirling dervishes, and the slow goofy hip-hop dance Slam Dunk Through a Black Hole. The saxophone sings the catchy motifs of Journey Through the Asteroid Belt with the counterpoint of creative drumming and bubbling electronics, and New Age against busy African drumming and new-age synth lines, the two relaxed moments of an album that mostly sounds like a battlefield. Hallett is a force of nature, one of the greatest drummers of his generation.

Leavers and Hallett were also in Soccer96, and Hutchings was also active in the Sons Of Kemet, in Polar Bear, in Melt Yourself Down and in Shabaka and the Ancestors. Shabaka and the Ancestors released Wisdom of Elders (Brownswood, 2016).

The four-song EP Death to the Planet (2017) contains another surreal infectious dance, the single Final Eclipse, with a coda of collective mayhem, but Start Running introduced a more pensive atmosphere, and the eight-minute March of the Rising Sun is mostly a demonstration of technical prowess in the vein of prog-rock of the 1970s. By their standards, Ascension is a ballad for Caribbean lounges.

Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery (Impulse, 2019) further reduced the impact. Because the End Is Really the Beginning is moody and a bit magniloquent, Unity and Astral Flying are just moody. The saxophone sings the nostalgic aria of Birth of Creation, worthy of a film soundtrack of the 1960s. The eight-minute Blood of the Past is a heavy blues interrupted by Kate Tempest's spoken word and with a melodramatic coda. The ebullient numbers, Super Zodiac and only marginally reignite the fire of Star Exploding in Slow Motion and Cosmic Dust. It is a more user-friendly sound, that avoids the jarring excesses of the first album. The quasi-techno single Summon the Fire even boasts a symphonic crescendo, and Timewave Zero is a passionate Brazilian ballad.

The six-song EP The Afterlife (Impulse, 2019) continued the trend towards a less confrontational sound with the sleepy sophisticated The Afterlife and the menacing but elegant ballad The Seven Planetary Heaven, with only the feverish Lifeforce Part II left to represent the wild dancing side of their canon.

The Comet Is Coming returned with Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam (Impulse, 2022), devoted to a curious dance-funk-jazz-rock hybrid, with Code sounding like the Love Of Life Orchestra, and Angel of Darkness sounding like a cosmic Sun Ra on drugs.

(Copyright © 2019 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )