Review Summary: A bit faded, but still entertaining.
After a three years-long gap since their latest, Notthingham’s white dressed
psychedelic / progressive rock / "fake" gospel band has released their long-awaited fourth album,
There Is No Time. In this album, the Church induced some minor changes into their formula, resulting in a “less-riffy” and slowly blooming record.
The Church of the Cosmic Skull has proven their talent many times through writing charming and catchy earworms. For example, some of their songs from their first LPs became especially popular, like songs like
”Evil In Your Eye” or
”Cold Sweat” have more than 2.5 million views on YouTube. The “secret” behind their success was probably how easily they mixed the progressive rock’s unpredictable nature (in song structures for example) with the colorful and exciting flavour of psychedelia, and of course the extraordinarily good vocal performance was just as an important factor in it (Brother Bill’s very bluesy and doomy style goes fantastically well with the really gospel-inspired choirs). After the very colorful and captivating first two albums came
Everybody's Going to Die, which more or less broke their flow, as the overall album felt a bit “unpolished” and was far less memorable compared to the previous ones. With
There Is No Time, I hoped the band would make a big return, but sadly, it wasn’t entirely the case.
Let’s see the bad things first. Just like the previous record,
There Is No Time doesn’t really contain such bombastic songs like their most famous ones, and especially the middle of the album feels… uninspired. The single
”One More Step” and the two
”Valleys and Hills” songs especially sound like they lack some spark and certain parts of these songs feel a bit hollow, sometimes repetitive, and a bit too long as well. Don’t get me wrong, these are not essentially
bad songs, but they could have done
better.
Now, let’s have a look at the album’s positive side as well! The album starts with two very fun songs
”Seven Rays of Colour” and
”Pleading With the Cosmic Mother”, both are like “standard” Church of the Cosmic Skull creations, delivering playful psych/prog melodies and catchy choruses. The progressiveness intensifies in
”Now's the Time”, which is one of the most complex songs the band has ever written. The typical playful “dancing” prog rock melodies along with lots of tempo changes (sometimes it’s quite hard to sing along) made this particular song especially interesting. However, the most interesting song on the album is probably
”Last Words of a Dying God” due to its surprisingly ominous and sinister tone (imagine an ABBA and early Ghost mashup, it’s…
spooky!), also on the guitar front it is the heaviest song on the album - and the album really needed that. To be honest, I really hoped for more distortion from this album because it really fits to their sound, especially since the band’s singer-guitarist-songwriter Bill Fisher treated us with a quite heavy riffer solo album,
Mass Hypnosis and the Dark Triad, in 2020. But maybe next time.
Like every Church of the Cosmic Skull record,
There Is No Time guarantees a fun, easy-listening experience, establishing their fame as one of the most consistent and great “retro” bands nowadays. However, if you’re new to this band, I’d recommend checking their earlier albums instead. It’s good, but could have been better.
