COSMOGRAF: Heroic Materials (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Would Robin Armstrong be an assiduous reader of Music Waves? Listening to "Heroic Materials", the latest album of Cosmograf, the pseudonym behind which he hides himself, one could believe it. Because if since the beginning we have never stopped saying all the (deserved) good things we thought about the discography of the British artist, his last production, "Rattrapante", seemed to mark a certain breathlessness in terms of inspiration, between too familiar melodies and unjustified lengths of some tracks. His new album corrects this admirably.

"Heroic Materials" tells the story of a 99 year old man, a pilot of the R.A.F. during the second world war, who doesn't understand the modern world that surrounds him and lives in nostalgia of his memories. All that he loved, all those he loved are gone, replaced by a disappointing present and a worrying future.

Needless to say, with such a scenario, the music is particularly melancholic, Cosmograf not being known anyway to deliver funny albums. The atmosphere is nostalgic and the melodies that follow one another on a tempo going from slow to very slow ooze a sadness often bordering on despair, more rarely tinged with short periods of revolt.

If Robin Armstrong often enamelled his previous albums of sensitive Gilmour-like guitar soli, it is the piano which imposes itself on "Heroic Materials". Except for 'Regretful Refrain' where melodies and heartbreaking soli have a pleasant perfume of Pink Floyd, the incursions of the guitar are few and often very short whereas the piano-voice duets multiply ('I Recall', the parts 1 and 3 of 'Heroic Materials', 'Mary', 'Blinkers', 'The Same Stupid Mistake', 'A Better World'). The melodies titillate the sensibility of the listener and the vocals distils a sadness without pathos, reminding several times Neil Young period "Harvest" ('I Recall', 'The Same Stupid Mistake', 'A Better World').

By abandoning the long tracks for shorter formats, by giving more space to the piano and by playing the nostalgia card, Cosmograf brings a welcome wind of novelty into his compositions, allowing him to revive his best period. - Official website

COSMOGRAF

HEROIC MATERIALS

AUTRE LABEL

PROGRESSIVE ROCK