Beekstraat 1 - B-2640 Mortsel - Belgium

COSMO: Alien

Release

Style

In 1984, a remarkable record was released by the name of Orion The Hunter, the self-titled first (and only) album by a short-lived band featuring BOSTON’s Barry Goudreau and a promising young vocalist, Fran Cosmo. The album is still considered a major AOR release. After the band’s demise, Cosmo briefly worked with Michael Schenker, before joining BOSTON. It is very nice to hear Fran Cosmo back at work now, this time with the band COSMO, a band he put together with his son Antonio, Mick Brooks, Bill Carman and Pat Orlowski.

Fans of the ORION THE HUNTER or BOSTON album will immediately recognize Cosmo’s voice, which is as strong as ever, although at times he sounds much more aggressive here. But at the same time this is a quite different album. This is more of a modern, grungy take on melodic rock. Don’t worry, though, there’s still a lot of great melodies and excellent harmonies, but if you expect BOSTON or ORION, you might be a bit disappointed.

‘Communication’ is a heavy, groovy rocker, which sounds like KINGDOM COME. I tend to prefer the more melodic tracks, like ‘Alien’, ‘When I Close My Eyes’, ‘Can’t Run Away’, ‘Don’t Tell Me Your Lies’ and the nice ballad ‘Helicopter’. The dark and grungy ‘Creep’ is definitely another highlight, though. Not all songs are winners, but then there’s more than enough fine music to enjoy here.

A very nice album. I certainly hope to hear this wonderful singer more in the future, because his great vocals have featured on far too few albums.

 

Musicians

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Last updated: 03 december 2006 .
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