Seattle Subsonic

Wolfmother Returns

October 16th, 2009

I guess we figured it might happen with this band, Wolfmother. Honestly, we really should’ve known better. Rewind to 2005: three dudes from Sydney, Australia (that’s in New South Wales, people) unleash an album filled with powerful, 70′s-style metal stoner epics, proudly displaying their shameless affinity for the glistening crowns of rock music’s anointed divinity: Zeppelin, Sabbath, et al. It was an entrancing and head-pounding record, with impossible soaring riffage, dirty organ backdrops and requisite fantasy imagery of unicorns, gnomes, wild women and the mind’s eye. “Woman” was the mainstream hit, but songs like “Colossal”, “Joker & the Thief”, “Dimension” and “Where Eagles Have Been” made the album alarmingly superb. In short, for 2005, too good to be true.

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We knew it rehashed the ideas and techniques of those radio kings we grew up idolizing. We didn’t care; it rocked and we wanted to party to it, hard. Deep down we knew it couldn’t last, though. You can only live off your ancestors for so long before you have to pack up and set out on your own. I recall remarking one late evening, “I don’t think they can make this album again. It’ll be too much.” Fast forward to 2008: the band’s rhythm section splits, citing “irreconcilable personal and musical differences”. Andrew Stockdale, guitarist/vocalist/mastermind, chooses to soldier on with new mates. Today (or rather, October 26th), we have Cosmic Egg, which you can currently stream in its entirety over at the band’s myspace.

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I should’ve known. The luxury of hindsight tells me that maybe we shouldn’t have invested so much into Wolfmother, that it was a flash-in-the-pan kind of deal. Save for a few enjoyable tunes, Cosmic Egg comes off as a bit boring and bland. The bombast meter has been set to medium, the inspiration quotient staggeringly low. The album serves as a build up to, and a let down from the black boot swagger of the title track. “10,000 Feet” is tyrannical in its guitar march, with Stockdale’s Ozzy-esque storytime vocals leading the charge. The cyclonic guitar storm of “Sundial” complements the primordial spirit Stockdale is so clearly enamored with.

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The cosmic egg—or, the seed that spawned the Big Bang—is a BIG deal to cosmologists everywhere. Stockdale, unfortunately, aims for Cosmic Egg to be just as colossal. It’ll be interesting to see how the band formulates the set list when it comes to the Paramount Theatre Friday, November 20th. Let’s hope they haven’t forgotten how we felt in 2005.