I loved Fire Down Below‘s debut so much that their sophomore album arrived with some admittedly unreasonable expectations from me. I mean, Viper Vixen Goddess Saint was my literal favorite album of last year, kind of hard to live up to. This one, however, just didn’t grab me…. Not right away, anyway. But after that initial letdown, I gave it another go and it got under my skin. And it started haunting my dreams. And then I couldn’t stop listening to it. And now it’s my belated Pick of the Week, after having listened to it many times over the last month since its release.
Hymn of the Cosmic Man is basically a concept album, loosely based around the story of a man who volunteers to go into space to save the planet, with what are, let’s say, some mixed results. Along the way we get treated to our own trip as the music twists and turns from laid back instrumentals to driving rock and spacey mixed key interludes… and then is over before we’re ready to be brought back to earth.
Standout tracks: Ignition/Space Cruiser, Saviour of Man.
I am loving these Belgian blokes and their imaginative heavy fuzz rock, and until I can see them live I’ll just keep blasting these albums as often as I can!
Fire Down Below on the Web:
Bandcamp https://firedownbelow.bandcamp.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/Fire_Down_Below
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/firedownbelow/
