Galactic Cowboys Space In Your Face Rapidshare Free
Wally Farkas
The Galactic Cowboys' second album cover features a crazed old man in a space suit rushing at the camera, ready to strangle you on some remote planet. Combine that with the opening track (who's vocal line consists of the band shouting 'Space in your face!' Over and over) and you have a pretty good sense of what this album is about. While the band's style is basically a fun mix of thrash metal and prog rock, album #2 leans much more heavily on the thrash side of things. It's hard, fast, and, yes, in your face. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it does make for a less-interesting album overall, as the songs are less distinct from one another; the chorus' harmonies, especially, tend to sound more and more the same, especially in light of their stellar debut. Still, the band was one of the best out there, and even this stripped-down sophomore effort is still much more musically inventive than what the genre usually delivers.
The album is pretty strong for the first half, with If I Were a Killer being the hardest thing they've offered to date; it's then followed by their weakest track to date, Blind, which is just plain boring. I'm not sure who the band is bitching about here, (it could be mastermind producer and manager Sam Taylor, who parted ways with the band after this album) but not much is going on musically.
With 1993's Space in Your Face, the Galactic Cowboys gave new meaning to the term 'sophomore slump.' The band was either suffering from writer's block (which would explain the inclusion of outtakes and rejects from their first album sessions), or they expected their highly original sound to make up for the mediocre songwriting herein.
- Download mp3 GALACTIC COWBOYS - SPACE IN YOUR FACE from MediaClub.Com.
- The Galactic Cowboys' second album cover features a crazed old man in a space suit rushing at the camera, ready to strangle you on some remote planet.
At seven and a half minutes long, that really kills the momentum. The album slowly recovers after that- though the harmonies, as well as the instrumental jams, start to sound a little repetitive.
It ends with a fun rocker ( Where Are You Now?) featuring bassist (and chief songwriter) Monty Colvin calling up girls he remembers from high school and getting dissed over and over while the band jams on. And then we get to the hidden tracks. A seemingly-cool concept, the wise-ass band has hidden two songs somewhere in the rest of the album, surrounded by silence. Of course, the joke wears thin after a few listens, and disappears altogether in the era of computers when listeners can quite easily find the hidden songs via their iTunes playlist.
Regardless, the songs are actually worth digging up since they're two of the best tunes on the album. Ranch On Mars takes the acoustic strumming of a traditional cowboy ranch tune and blends it successfully with some hard-ass thrash, while the band harmonizes about living up in space. It's the kind of thing we've come to expect after their first album, and it features one of the strongest vocal melodies they've written.
The other hidden track, Still Life Of Peace is equally unique, being the first (and only?) successful combination of thrash metal and classical sitar! Between that and some killer guitar solos, it's a great example of what the band can do. Had they moved these into the middle of the album (and booted Blind) Space In Your Face would have been much stronger, but as it stands, it's pretty damn good. After this album, the band would switch labels, lose a guitarist, and become a very different beast, one that never managed to be nearly as interesting or pounding.
It's too bad, but they at least delivered two great albums before the collapse. I was rather surprised when I looked this band up on here, and there was only one review for them. Honestly, if you're the slightest bit into metal that's not in the mainstream, you've at least heard the name 'Galactic Cowboys'. I picked up this disc simply because I had heard it described as 'weird'. I mostly enjoy thrash (which is partially what makes this album so listenable to me (and if you know what this band sounds like and you're asking to yourself 'Thrash?! What the fuck?!' I'll explain in a moment.)) I believe this band is mislabled under the 'genre' heading of this site, as what is heard here was much more than just 'melodic power metal'.
This band makes an effort to be different, and not everyone will have the ability to grasp it and get what they're doing, but perhaps it is better this way. What is heard here is a progressive metal band combining the following elements; power-thrash metal, in the vain of early Metal Church, with a very high sense of melody, throwing in acoustic guitars, and almost constant barbershop 50's era quartet vocals.
Now blending older Metallica-styled stuff with barbershop quartet vocals may make you sit there and think you know what it is this band sounds like, however, it's not really until you hear them that you really get a feel for how it sounds in reality. So, as with prog-band, it's sort of like coffee. At first, the vocals heard here will throw you off and make you go 'what the fuck?' And make you take out the disc almost immediately a minute into the first song. But, after you acquire the taste, try to get what's going on, eventually, you'll like this band more and more, but you have to give them a chance. Multiple chances at that. When people ask 'What's the first song I should hear off this album?'
The answer is generally 'If I were a Killer', the heaviest offering off of 'Space In Your Face'. But, I sort of feel that that kind of thing would be misleading, as while I did describe the metal heard here as similar to power-thrash to Metal Church, speed is really not that common of an occurence (I guess you have to hear it. The song I'd reccomend would be 'You Make Me Smile', as it is just as heavy as 'If I were A Killer', but the melodic vocals have much more of a presence on this song that is similar to other songs on the album, wheras 'If I were a Killer' only features the vocals when the guys say 'If I were a Killer' in the chorus.
The songs that are best on this album from a heavy standpoint are Space In Your Face/You Make Me Smile, If I Were a Killer, and Circles in the Fields. The reason I gave this album an 80 instead of 100 though, is because the rest of the songs in general are sort of have constant melodic rock, then all of a sudden jumping to the uptempo metal heard in the three previously mentioned best songs. Some may find this to be rather a tough transition to follow, but really. You just have to listen to it, listen to it, and listen to it some more. Finally, it will come to you 'That's why they put that there'.
All these songs have a fair amount of metal in them that is power-thrash or 'We want to be Metallica' moments as the previous reviewer stated. Leslie I feel blends the acoustic and metal guitars nicely in the same song on the verses and chorus, and it naturally builds to the crunchy instrumental center of the song. Ranch on Mars (a hidden track), is pretty slow (for me metal doesn't necessarily have to be fast), with a nice solo toward the middle in it, and melodic vocals throughout, but they throw in this blues harp, and cheesy keyboard effect, this again may throw people off, but it's this band being weird, you just have to adjust. Still Life of Peace (the other hidden track) starts off with a cool riff that gets returned to every so often in the song, but also has weird percussion and stuff heard throughout as well. No Problems I also like, though it starts off with a rather soft guitar part, it transforms into an upbeat metal song with well sung vocals, and a chorus that tones things down a bit before reintensifying into the upbeat part on the verses. In fact I like every song because I've give them time to grow on me EXCEPT I Do What I Do.
Which starts out pretty cool, but is probably the softest song on the album. And when you get to thinking the barbershop vocals detract from the heaviness, after awhile you may just get like me and get to thinking it adds to it (!). If you want something truly original, and a band that will stay for you for life as you slowly progress from hating what you hear to absolutely loving it and needing it almost daily, give this band a shot. Make an investment. Once you adjust, you'll never look back, but it takes work. I picked this out of the dollar store bargain bin for $2.99, so I wasn't expecting much. This album isn't as much bad is it is just mediocre.
Was it worth $3? Yes, but not much more. 'Space in Your Face' and 'You Make Me Smile' lack aggression, and seem to lack 'contrast' since the only sound dynamic is 'moderately loud'. 'I Do What I Do' has poppy vocals, which would be nice, except they just don't mix with the rest of the song well. Metallic Cheap Trick?
'Circles in the Fields' is. A tad bit silly. This is what would you get when you take the poppy hard rock song, throw in a little 'we want to be Metallica' every now and then, and add in some Red Hot Chili Pepper-esque shout outs in the beginning. It suffers from trying to be far too many different things at once, and not pulling it off well at all. 'If I Were a Killer' is actually a decent metal song, if it had only been worked on a little longer, and didn't suffer from the before mentioned lack of aggression and ability to change dynamics.
'Blind' is a nice ballad, and makes the album (almost) worth owning, and makes me think of what it might sound like if Cheap Trick covered Sentenced. 'No Problems' seems to start out a bit punkish, and a bit better than the first four tracks (for one, the harmonious choruses fit in much better) though it goes on for too long, and in the middle falls into the same bad patchwork sound as 'Circles in the Fields.' Leslie' is good, though gets the same comments as 'If I. Were a Killer.' 'Where are You Now?' Sounds like a hellish reject Ozzy song, though very, VERY slow. (No problem with SLOW, just slow combined with a lackluster song are bad.) I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE 'hidden' 'bonus' tracks, especially if they're tucked away in some hard to reach place.
Through much, much boredom I finally found: 2:32 into track 20, you get a song better than most of the listed songs. All of track 32 is a good song.
Why not just add the extra two tracks into the listing so that the album didn't seem like such a big rip for the people who bought it at full price when it was released? The whole album seems like an experiment in trying to get too many different sounds into one form of music. It just didn't work well.
The sad thing is that I'm sure some other band could pick up this same music, work with it just a little bit more, and make a good album. Still, missed potential doesn't make it worth buying.