Cyclocosmia
Deadwood
Independent Release
2016
Cyclocosmia is a UK based duo comprised of London born James Scott, who acts as “the band”/producer etc., indeed as a multi-instrumentalist that he is and Lorena Franceschini, a Caracas born, Venezuelan singer and also entertainment lawyer. The whole “band” started as a project of James, some six years ago or so and he was joined by Lorena a couple of years ago, when she moved to London. The overall style is a thickly produced, doomy sounding somewhat symphonic metal with some male growls and Lorena’s clean singing over, the simple but rather effective arrangements. She thankfully doesn’t launch into endless operatic nonsense and she seems to know what she’s doing…
I do however have some qualms over the release. Being recorded in a home studio mixed and mastered by the same person and recorded by a duo of musicians, it sounds “weaker” than your traditional band effort. Firstly, while James might be capable of playing multiple instruments, he’s not as imaginative as a full-time dedicated player, would be; ie the drumming is basic (not that it is too complex in the first place) but you get the picture… secondly his production skills and possibly equipment are not on par with that of a proper studio and that sort of shows. At high volumes the instruments tend to sound too cluttered and everything has been quite compressed. The guitars in particular are quite loud and upfront… it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard and a brave thing to go it alone, but it’s far from the best too. There’s a bunch of interesting songs and a few efforts to try out slightly different, somewhat softer song styles, but it’s not something that you have not heard before…
It might take Cyclocosmia sometime to grow and it should better happen organically. Fleshing out the band – properly would also benefit in terms of performances and maybe getting different people to mix and master would also help the sound to feel more natural. There’s enough promise however in what they’re attempting here and I’d urge anyone interested in something female fronted that doesn’t sound like say Nightwish and their ilk to give this a try.
I do however have some qualms over the release. Being recorded in a home studio mixed and mastered by the same person and recorded by a duo of musicians, it sounds “weaker” than your traditional band effort. Firstly, while James might be capable of playing multiple instruments, he’s not as imaginative as a full-time dedicated player, would be; ie the drumming is basic (not that it is too complex in the first place) but you get the picture… secondly his production skills and possibly equipment are not on par with that of a proper studio and that sort of shows. At high volumes the instruments tend to sound too cluttered and everything has been quite compressed. The guitars in particular are quite loud and upfront… it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard and a brave thing to go it alone, but it’s far from the best too. There’s a bunch of interesting songs and a few efforts to try out slightly different, somewhat softer song styles, but it’s not something that you have not heard before…
It might take Cyclocosmia sometime to grow and it should better happen organically. Fleshing out the band – properly would also benefit in terms of performances and maybe getting different people to mix and master would also help the sound to feel more natural. There’s enough promise however in what they’re attempting here and I’d urge anyone interested in something female fronted that doesn’t sound like say Nightwish and their ilk to give this a try.