Lost Cosmonauts - Mercury

Lost Cosmonauts

Mercury
self-released; 2016

3.4 out of 5

By April H

Mercury is the DIY project of a Patrick Thompson who not only wrote all the pieces but also played each instrument that would make up the album. Lost Cosmonauts really should be entitled Lost Cosmonaut as Patrick single hand-idly tackles this 6 year project with the help of a MacBook Pro, GarageBand software and the guest bedroom at home. It's a simple start at paying tribute to a lifetime love of surfer themed music.

Mercury is made up of 10 tracks with a mix of traditional surfer themed instrumentals with a strong retro space vibe. These tracks could easily lend themselves to a great remake of a classic space adventure or as background music for a space themed ride at theme park. They were fairly predictable but fun.

The first track “Human Warhead” was fast and heavy on the surf influence. You could almost picture a set of cosmonauts rushing past a green screen chasing off some sort of alien villain. The opening song for the album was classic but almost too predictable. It really needed a new twist or even vocals to set it apart from something you may have heard before.

“Launch Complex 5” continued the adventure with a little bit of an almost western theme added in on top of a classic guitar heavy repetition. This song felt less space age and more stage coach robbery in full effect. This vibe continued through “Redstone” as well. The vibe was very retro but off just a bit from the surf and space theme.

Of all of the songs, I have to say “Splashdown” was by far my favorite with the classic rock feel and an almost surfer rock anthem quality. This song with the right lyrics would be the big scene in an updated surfer summer blockbuster movie. I didn't get much of a space feeling from this song, but it was definitely a guitar focused surfer dream sequence. Although this song started in a far off guest room, it could easily lend itself to a live performance beach side somewhere.

​While the album was fun to listen to with the nod to a lost time of the classic 1960's futuristic space movies, there were some very predictable songs on the overall work. It was a strong first effort and with two more albums in the works it will be interesting to see how this artist's youthful talent changes as he hits college and beyond.

Tweet