College Times

Issue date: 10/29/09 Section: Music

Media Credit: Interscope

Wolfmother
Cosmic Egg
(Interscope)
Grade: B

When audiences first heard Wolfmother, the smiles were many. Like Queens of the Stone Age without the tongue-in-cheek cleverness, the young Aussie outfit, led by singer/guitarist Andrew Stockdale, winnowed down blurry stoner rock and vintage metal into its essentials: high, throaty yelps with repetitious, fantastical lyrics; contagious melodies; wifty bridges. Throw a rock and you'd hit an influence from 1973. All Wolfmother needed were codpieces. Yet they managed to avoid pastiche while toying with cliché.

Fast-forward to the present: Stockdale replaces members and hires moody producer Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode, NIN). The propulsion and towering sludge of its past still infuse the band's sound, from the spaced-out "Fields" to the dirt-ball drama of "10,000 Feet." But there's more weight to Stockdale's warble throughout the new mixed, murky bag, even in sillier flights such as "In the Castle." Cosmic Egg's melodies and arrangements are less cluttered despite the band's heritage in metal marauding. Light breaks forth in the bright, open "California Queen," and darkness unfolds in the hemmed-in "Far Away."

It's a good Egg.

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