Monday 1 July 2019

Robots Of The Ancient World - Cosmic Riders (Album Review)


Release date: March 26th 2019. Label: Self Released. Format: CD/DD

Cosmic Riders – Tracklisting

1.God Particle/Oblivion Stone 08:31
2.Sweet Lady 06:30
3.In My Head 02:50
4.High & Drive 05:25
5.Five Eyes 06:29
6.Cosmic Riders 07:16

Members

Nico-Guitar+Keys
Justin-Drums+Guitar
Laven-Bass
Caleb-Vocals

Review

Cosmic Riders is the new album from Robots Of The Ancient World and it’s an album that pitches the right balance between Spaced Out Stoner Rock/Metal and good old fashioned Rock and Roll. The album doesn’t play out or finish as you would fully expect. As the band take many creative risks and challenges with this album.

Opening song – God Particle/Oblivion Stone – is a two-part song masquerading as one whole song. As the first part – God Particle – is an exciting take on the standard Instrumental Psychedelic Doom/Stoner Metal song with a cool narration setting up the scene for the rest of the album. The song seems to fade out and you expect the band to move onto the next song. Nope. The second part of this song – Oblivion Stone – appears and it sees Robots Of The Ancient World taking influence from The Sword with a more Punk driven style of Psychedelic Doom/Stoner Metal with the spaced out lyrics and riffs building up to an exciting finish.

Second song – Sweet Lady – opens with a cool Bass Guitar riff before the trippy Stoner Metal sounds appear and sees Robots Of The Ancient World play a vintage style of Stoner Rock/Metal. These guys have quite a flair to their music as they take influence from The Sword, Black Sabbath and Clutch in places. The whole feel of the album can be quite raw at times and uneven at times but in the overall context of how the album plays out, this works superbly well in the bands favour.

Third song – In My Head – is a vintage sounding Stoner Rock song that opens with psychedelic post-rock interlude before the band come back kicking and screaming with a faster style of music that does run out of steam before the three minutes are up. Though the vocals and lyrics are excellent throughout.

Fourth song – High & Drive – offers a more “Weedian” style of music with the sound of the Desert fully coming into force for this song. The whole song reminds me of KYUSS and FU MANCHU with the hard-rocking Desert/Stoner Rock riffs leave you wanting more. The vocals from Caleb feel inspired John Garcia in places. Maybe not as dramatic but I can hear similar style of vocals from Caleb.

The final two songs – Five Eyes & Cosmic Riders – is where the band start to sound more comfortable with their musical surroundings as they offer perhaps the heaviest and best sounding songs on the album. The band don’t mess around here as the riffs come thick and fast from almost every direction especially on the excellent final song – Cosmic Riders.

Robots Of The Ancient World have released a thrilling album. It’s not the best produced album currently out there. However, Cosmic Riders still offers a high amount of exciting riffs to stand out from the crowd and will have you under their highly dynamic and hypnotic spell.

Words by Steve Howe

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