Quickly gaining some serious steam since their formation in 2009 is the indie rock band Cosmic Suckerpunch. Formerly known as Ghost Robot, the group from Los Angeles is fronted by the duo of singer/rhythm guitarist Ari Welkom and lead guitarist Fabien Hameline. After opening up for band’s such as The Black Keys, Muse and Phish for San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival, the gang introduced us to their debut full-length album, Good Morning.
Starting out completely mysterious and trippy, the first listing, “Cosmic,” is pretty damn good. Welkom gets emotional while describing that he’s all alone in this world while Hameline fires off some great riffs. “The Great Divide” follows and unlike the opening tune, this one is incredibly upbeat. Varying from toned-down to relatively hard, “In Waves” is an expressive track, as Welkom sounds a bit like The Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan. The heaviest jam, “The Devil Song,” is without a doubt the best. The bass play from Joshua Gottlieb is astonishing while the drums from Adam Timmerman are also striking.
After the introduction to “Black Hole,” you would figure that it would be just soft and dreary for the duration. But as time passes, Welkom’s vocals reach a crescendo and the guitar solo that Hameline throws out is probably the highlight from the disc. Some songs disappoint, however. “Natural High” feels a little too rushed while “In Love With A Robot” just doesn’t seem to fit in with the others.
This album did have a few low-points but the pros far outweighed the cons here. For their first CD, they really did a lot to impress. For the most part, Welkom proved he can be a very talented singer while Hameline showed that he can handle his own on guitar.
In A Word: Favorable
