4 out of 5

Label: Modular

Producer: Alan Moulder

Without the muscular production of Dave Sardy and with a whole new crew, Wolfmother’s lead Andrew Stockdale proves his group’s legitimacy by stepping back a bit, and not trying to over-power the listener to prove ‘they’ve still got it.’  This by no means makes ‘Cosmic Egg’ a laid back album, but it’s certainly more reserved than their debut.  Sure, it adds some keys and production touches that are common additions to a sophomore release, but it’s not just flourish to cover up substance: this is the same throw-back heavy metal rock, just with a bit of stoner rock woven in to deepen the pool of influences and give us a bit of variation to song structure.  The result is something less initially grabbing (‘California Queen’ makes nowhere near the arresting splash of any of ‘Wolfmother’s tracks), but still fully worth it.  You still have your tracks that go for the gut – such as ‘New Moon Rising,’ whose soaring chorus gets stuck in your head – and then you have those that take their relative time to build you up to a frenzy, such as the soaring (yuk yuk) ‘10,000 Feet,’ and closer ‘Violence of the Sun,’ which is exactly the kind of mid-song breakout closing tracks should be.

The same distractions as the previous disc still exist, of course: that some songs, as they all mostly start with one heavy riff, are rather indiscernible until the rest of the group joins in to flesh things out, and that our lyrics are very much of the same influences as the music – that is, mostly about chicks or mystical ramblings.  However, the latter being said, since this batch of songs feel a tad more realized than the hammer-down tribute of s/t, Stockdale’s singing feels more felt and less showman, thus adding some depth to what’s being sung.  Still mostly simple rhymes, but it gave me pause to listen to the lyrics instead of just nodding my head.

Production-wise, Moulder’s take is plus and minus.  Nothing sounds as heavy as Sardy’s work; tracks that should have some pomp (like the opener) fall a little flat – but maybe enginner, co-mixer Joe Barresi had a hand in that, since he did the same thing to Chevelle’s ‘Hats Off to the Bull.’  But the benefit of this is that we get a taste of things besides the guitar: the bass (Ian Peres) becomes an important counterpoint, and the drummer’s (Dave Atikins) able shifts in timing help sell Stockdale’s trick, later in the album, of suddenly down-shifting a song into a slower pace.

So I don’t have the sweet 70s references to back up anything I’m saying here, but it don’t matter: it’s the music man, it’s just… the music…  I bought the first disc because of Sardy, and though I wanted to shake my head at the hipster-gloss of it all, the obvious Zepp and Sabbath chunks cut and smashed together, I truly couldn’t help but admit that it was an effing catchy album, even if the trick was just to distract you with how hard and fast it was all played.  And then I was expecting the group to disappear.  ‘Cosmic Egg’ did sort of fulfill that, as it didn’t come with near the same hype as their first album, but the band did not fulfill that, in a good way: ‘Cosmic’ showed a group (or Stockdale) that had considered their skills and tried to stay true to them, while allowing in just enough new tricks to show that they meant what they played.  The standout singles might not stand out as much, but it’s still an incredibly catchy album, meticulously pieced together and played, and honestly a bit more rewarding overall.