The Bouncing Souls – Comet
The Bouncing Souls go space themed with their ninth studio album. Bouncy and Buoyant album blastoff Baptised is arguably the best song, so you might be thinking that its placement at the start of the record is shooting the load too soon. But don't worry, to put in astronomical terms, if comet were to compared to anything in the cosmos it should be a cepheid, a variable star with pulsating luminosity.
For those of you worried that, having written a record themed on space and the idea that at any point the world could cease due to a comet, The Bouncing souls would change their simple formula for concocting punk rock gems Fast Times should reassure: "here we go again saying the same things".
Static has been streamed in advance of the album and is characteristic of both The Bouncing Souls and of this album; fast, melodic, upbeat punk/rock/pop. Title track Comet was both the first song written for the album and what provided inspiration for the album. The long outro touches on the epic, and the song is orbiting a celebratory sound, and why the hell not? If someone talks about a band in their twenties you presume they are talking about the band where the members are aged by two decades, but in this case it is how long the band has been around!
Quiet bass-lead breakdown of DFA that comes at escape velocity from the black hole left by a fast driven guitar solo quickly makes way for the loud proclamation "Nothing's gonna break my stride, I'm stepping out tonight, some people see no way - not me I'm DFA!" (down for anything) is symptomatic of the positive, upbeat leanings that have given The Bouncing Souls plaudits over the past twenty plus orbits of the sun and earned them their legendary status.
A space-rock album of Planetary proportions this is not, but another triumphant chapter in the steady state model of The Bouncing Souls expanding universe where matter must be continually created to maintain their constant presence as a red giant of the punk rock universe.