14.
Wolfmother
Cosmic Egg

Finally. I loved Wolfmother’s eponymous debut, and it has taken an inordinately long time for them to produce this follow up. Is it as good as the debut? Was it worth them taking all that time over it? Well, er, ‘no’ and ‘probably not’. But it’s still an extremely fun ‘retro-rock’ album of real class. Part of the reason for the delay was that in 2008 Andrew Stockdale essentially got rid of everyone else in the band, so that, Stockdale aside, Wolfmother now have an entirely new lineup – not that you can really tell. After trying out a number of versions of the retro formula on the debut, this new lineup seem to have settled on just one this time round (which sits somewhere between Black Sabbath and early Led Zeppelin). This makes Cosmic Egg a more cohesive record. The songs aren’t quite as strong, but they do flow better and this feels more like an ‘album’ than its predecessor. The tracks rocket along in nice three minute bursts. This pace is then well broken up with slightly longer ballads (see, for example, ‘Far Away’, which is like a turbocharged Magical Mystery Tour era Beatles song). Admittedly, the lyrics are just as rubbish as those of the bands from the late 60s and early 70s that Wolfmother are trying to emulate, but, then, who cares? Overall, it’s an album that’s cheesier than a ploughman’s platter, but there’s not a duff song to be found here and it’s all put together very well – a proper rock album of the kind rarely made anymore. Like both Clutch and Green Day, though, Cosmic Egg (what a shit name for an album) isn’t going to change anyone’s world.