Planet Hunter – Moscovium
(Independent)
Reviewed by Rob Harbers.
On their debut album “Moscovium”, Wellington’s Planet Hunter dial the volume up, the speed down (mostly), and set the controls for the heart of the sun. They don’t quite make it (more on this later) but they certainly give it a fucking good try!
Named for an element with a vanishingly short life, discovered in a Russian particle accelerator, the album takes all the band’s diverse influences (prog rock, jazz, funk, Balkan dance music, metal, indie pop), chucks them in the blender, and switches that mofo on. The result is an accomplished set that rocks from the get-go, and doesn’t let up for another 40-odd minutes.
Opening track “Humans Of The Wild” sets the tone, with its grinding riffs putting us right into the 90’s, giving off strong vibes of Kyuss and similar stoner icons, with a mid-stream change of pace that shows the spirit of Tool is strong in these ones. The sound doesn’t feel so much played as hewn from the earth itself, being as solid as rock. Second track, “The Ocean” starts out sounding a little more like Kyuss’s offspring Queens Of The Stone Age before dropping in to similar territory as the previous number, and perhaps outstaying itself by a minute or so, with the riff repeating without really developing further.
“Droning”, the third number, begins with an interesting riff and proceeds with a faster pace than previously encountered, to produce something that sounds like the outcome of Maynard James Keenan stumbling into a Balkan rave with a funky bassist friend (yes, even bass players have friends!), and shows the genre-bending potential of this quartet. This faster pace continues through the subsequent “Dying Since Birth”, which nicely subverts the lyrics of “Comfortably Numb” with its refrain of “I have become, comfortable with my own demise”. It’s these two tracks together which stand out the most for me, demonstrating the power and potential of the band.
Having shown their cards early on, unfortunately the band fails to really develop the sound much on the remainder of the album, to my ears at least. Over the numerous times I listened prior to writing this, the second half of the album often slipped by without making any fresh impression beyond the initial, living up a little to the title of track 6, “The Grind”. Don’t get me wrong, all the songs are still as heavy as fuck, and played very well – it’s just a case of the overall impact being dulled by repetition. This is a cohesive body of work, which will please devotees of the grind, and I’d definitely be interested in seeing the band in a live setting, where the individual elements have more opportunity to differentiate themselves. To close off the blender metaphor from earlier, I’d suggest that maybe the finger was held on the power button a little longer than it could’ve been – and didn’t leave enough of the lumpy, crunchy bits!
But in any case, this is certainly worth a listen, and the band worthy of further attention. Another demonstration of the diversity that exists in the land of the long white cloud, if you know where to look!
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