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COFFIN HUNTERS "Cosmic Dawn"
COFFIN HUNTERS "Cosmic Dawn"
By Dr. Abner Mality
The 70's nostalgia craze shows no sign of abating...I think modern people are so disgusted by the times we are living in that any reminder of a simpler and more natural age is welcome. COFFIN HUNTERS are the latest 70's revivalists, hailing from Southern California and they are analog to the bone. After listening to "Cosmic Dawn", I think they would recoil from digital tones like a vampire would from garlic.
They certainly love their oldschool keyboard sounds, that's apparent from the very first second of "Isle Of The Dead". Which is really strange because the band doesn't have a member listed as playing keys even though they are present in every song. BLUE OYSTER CULT springs immediately to mind with a mixture of old metal, pop and prog. Sean Rivera has got a really rich and tuneful voice, not a million miles away from another singer named Rivera...James from HELSTAR. Thankfully there's no shrieky or helium-injected sopranos, which helps the overall sound.
The first half of the album seems to lean more to the commercial side of things and I can't say the balladic "Last Nail In the Coffin" has a lot of energy in it. In the second half, the pace picks up and the guitar is more prominent, as "Give Up The Ghost" and "Blood Moon" are retro metal in URIAH HEEP and RAINBOW fashion. The last few minutes of "Nightmare Mass" is such a bald faced lift from OZZY's "Mr. Crowley" that I would keep a lawyer on speed dial if I was COFFIN HUNTERS. There's a weird quote from Decibel magazine in the press sheet that says these guys have "a helpful dose of DEATH", I don't think anybody in their right mind could find a DEATH influence here, but then Decibel often has no idea what they're talking about.
I found "Cosmic Dawn" to be a pleasant listen if you're into any of the bands mentioned above (minus DEATH, of course) but not really anything essential.
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