Wake Up

Cosmic Tone

Wake Up

Compact (Israel)

I suspect this album will only sound as good as how much sunshine there is when you’re playing it. The third album from Cosmic Tone doesn’t have much daylight between the last, and there’s not a busting amount in the way of musical change between the two either. The sound here is very much what you’d expect from Compact and DJ Bog, this very clean neo-fullon (yes, I’m still going to call it that) sound that you’ll either love or you’ll hate. All the tracks on here are formulaic, this is true, and all rely strongly on melodies and chords (often the same three chords).

It’s tricky to talk about each track individually – New Generation seems to be a smidge above the others in terms of general energy; Celebration has a retchworthy final chord progression; Symphonic takes things a little deeper and doesn’t work at all; Wake Up has some pretty neat acid but then falls into the same trap as the others. Hmm. I can understand how people like this stuff, it’s very accessible, not too challenging on the ears or the brain, and would definitely make you dance. But it’s about as psychedelic as Cliff Richard. The conclusion you reach is that one Cosmic Tone tune is just about enough: just as well, as there’s only really one tune on this album.